Serbia announced as important EBRD center

Serbia will be an important center for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) not only for the Western Balkans, but also for the wider region, announced Matteo Colangeli, EBRD Regional Director for the Western Balkans.

– The EBRD has invested more than EUR 10 billion in Serbia over the past 25 years of operations, and a quarter of that amount in the last three years alone, which indicates the importance of Serbia for the EBRD – Colangeli said at the presentation of the EBRD Transition Report at the National Bank of Serbia (NBS).

This year’s edition of the report, entitled “Brave Old World”, deals with the impact of demographic changes and their far-reaching consequences, with a special focus on the challenges faced by both rapidly aging economies and those with relatively young populations, the NBS said in a statement.

The Director of the EBRD Research Department, Ralph de Haas, presented the expected demographic trends characterized by low and declining fertility rates, their economic effects and possible policies. The answer could be “import of workers” and “circular migration,” but both would have to be significant in scale to compensate for the population decline.

– This can only be part of the answer. The second option is technology that increases productivity. There are also active labor market policies, as well as the education system – he said.

Regional Chief Economist in the EBRD’s Regional Policy and Strategy Department Dimitar Bogov, speaking about global shocks, said that the general recommendations were to maintain macroeconomic discipline, credible monetary policy, prudent fiscal policy, energy diversification and structural reforms that improved the business environment and raised potential growth.

NBS Governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic said that demographic trends affected all key segments of the economy – the labor market, economic growth and inflation dynamics, and that the trends were such that the number of workers was decreasing in relation to the total world population, and fiscal pressures were increasing accordingly.

As the most significant economic consequences of the reduction in the labor force, she singled out lower-than-potential growth in gross domestic product (GDP), pressure on pension, social and health systems, and potential challenges related to the resilience of the European labor market.

As a key response to demographic changes, she singled out investment in productivity growth that would bring a better quality of life and save time as a valuable resource.

Tabakovic said that Serbia had been assessed as an example of a positive trend in the field of demographic trends, bearing in mind that, unlike most European countries, it had not long before been recording an increase in the total fertility rate, while in the European Union a decline had been recorded in the same period.

EBRD Evropska banka za obnovu i razvoj Beograd

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

EBRD

National Bank of Serbia

Matteo Colangeli

Ralph de Haas

Dimitar Bogov

Jorgovanka Tabaković