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

Introductory speech by Dr Jorgovanka Tabaković, Governor of the National Bank of Serbia, at the presentation of the August Inflation Report, Belgrade, 17 August 2022.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the press, dear colleagues,

Welcome to the presentation of the August Inflation Report. During our presentation today we shall present our estimates of economic developments and our latest projections of inflation, GDP growth and current account deficit, primarily for this and next year. In the Inflation Report that is before you we have tried to give the most comprehensive risk analysis so far given that reassuring voices in the world have become a true rarity. Due to this, psychological factors still prevail in commodity and financial markets. It seems that, in whatever way and whenever the conflict ends, only Europe will come out weaker than it was. This is the greatest long-term problem facing our country. Though we have expanded the geographic distribution of our exports and investment in the past years, the major part of Serbian exports still go to Europe and most investment to Serbia comes from Europe. I am intentionally using the word Europe and not only the European Union. Russia and Ukraine are also a part of Europe, and they are its largest countries, which is often forgotten.

In regard to current macroeconomic developments, at the very start I wish to emphasise that in the period since our previous Report, we have seen the materialisation of some of the key risks to the projection which originate from factors from the international environment and which we underscored at the time.