Jorgovanka Tabaković: Overview of recent monetary and macroeconomic trends in Serbia

Opening remarks by Dr Jorgovanka Tabaković, Governor of the National Bank of Serbia, at the presentation of the Inflation Report - May 2017, Belgrade, 19 May 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
19 May 2017

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,

Welcome to the presentation of the May Inflation Report. As always, we will give an overview of the current monetary and macroeconomic developments and our expectations for this and the following year. 

Inflation within the target tolerance band

First, I would like to underline that since the beginning of 2017, inflation has moved within the bounds of the new, lower target tolerance band. We anticipated that inflation would move within the target tolerance band this year and announced this trend at presentations of the Inflation Report last year as well as at the previous, February presentation. As in other countries, inflation in this period was affected by the recovery in global oil prices in the latter half of 2016 as was expected; however, adverse weather conditions early this year resulted in a higher than expected increase in the prices of fruit, vegetables and firewood. That this is an impact of one-off factors on inflation is suggested by low and relatively stable core inflation, which hovered at around 2% year-on-year. According to our latest projection, over the two-year horizon covered by the projection we expect inflation to move within the bounds of the target tolerance band of 3±1.5%.