ĐELIĆ: Serbia and IMF agree that budget deficit should amount to 3%

Deputy Prime Minister Božidar Đelić said that Serbia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had agreed that the budget deficit in 2009 should amount to about 3%.

- The question is which incomes or expenses are necessary for that deficit to be reached, as well as how the deficit of about 1 billion EUR and about 400m EUR worth of debts could be covered - Đelić said to the press at the meeting dedicated to the influence of the global economic crisis on Serbia, which was organized by London’s Ekonomist.

The Prime Minister of Serbia, Mirko Cvetković, said at that meeting that Serbia would need between 1.2 and 1.5 billion EUR to cover the budget deficit in 2009.

According to the words of Cvetković, Serbia will need good arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to be able to sign the loan contracts with foreign creditors, and the negotiations with IMF commenced on March 16 in Belgrade.

Cvetković said that he expected that Serbia’s budget deficit would amount to minimum 3% of gross national product (GNP) instead of projected maximum 1.75% of GNP.

He added that the Government of Serbia would ask European Union to grant 400m EUR to Serbia, so it could cover the budget deficit, but he said that it was possible that that amount would be even larger.