ĆIROVIĆ: We do not expect cancellation of World Bank's loans

(Zoran Ćirović)

The Assistant Minister of Finance of Serbia, Zoran Ćirović, said yesterday (January 18, 2010) that Serbia would accelerate withdrawal of the World Bank's loans and that it did not expect the existing or new projects to be cancelled because of the previous delays.

- What we can do is to maximally accelerate the things, and that is already visible when it comes to the programme loans - he told Beta agency.

Ćirović said that there were problems with the dynamics of the withdrawal of money for the projects for reform of pension system and real estate register because of the changes requested by the users.

- The project for rehabilitation of the irrigation and drainage system is even more drastic example - he said and added that only 4m EUR from the first part of the loan of 17.7m EUR (granted in 2005) had been used to the date, while no money had been withdrawn from the second tranche of the loan of 36.8m EUR.

The Assistant Minister of Finance said that they did not expect to have problems with the withdrawal of the money for the loans for the infrastructure projects.

Ćirović reminded that the World Bank had granted the loan of 275.2m EUR to Serbia in 2009 for construction of Corridor 10.

So far, no money has been withdrawn from that loan because of complex tender procedure and expropriation, but it is expected that certain part of the loan will be withdrawn in the first half of this year.