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 May Inflation Report, Belgrade, 14 May 2024.

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 May Inflation Report. As usual, in today's conference we will present key information from the Report, notably current economic developments, new macroeconomic projections and monetary policy decisions taken in the period since the previous Report. We will also be glad to take your questions and provide additional clarifications, if needed.

At the very start of the conference, I would like to underline that in the past year inflation in Serbia has been on a solid downward trajectory, and over the previous months it has slowed even faster than we anticipated. In view of such movements, our current projection expects inflation to enter the bounds of the target tolerance band already in May, while the previous projection expected this to transpire in midyear. At the same time, economic activity in the first quarter of 2024 picked up the pace beyond our expectations, to 4.6% y-o-y, giving us reasons to believe that we will achieve the 3.5% GDP growth rate this year, whereas in the previous projection we forecast growth in the 3–4% range. All of this indicates that our monetary policy was adequate and that it also ensured price stability in the medium-term, a continuation of positive economic growth rates and preservation of NPL ratios close to the historical lowest level of 3%.

We will now give a more detailed presentation of achieved macroeconomic movements and our latest projections.

***

As noted in the beginning, inflation in Serbia continued to lose breath, even faster than we projected in February, as well as a year ago. Relative to its peak from March last year, headline inflation this April was more than three times lower, measuring 5.0%. It slowed further owing to the smaller increase in food prices amid the easing of global cost-push pressures, which stood below headline inflation as of February and measured 2.9% y-o-y in April. Core inflation also acted as an important drag on headline inflation and, thanks to the past monetary policy tightening and the lower imported inflation in the same period, it edged down by 6.5 pp to 4.8% in April.