Opposition Official: Serbia's GDP Growth of 0.7 Percent in First Quarter Lower than European Average

Dusan Nikezic (YouTube printscreen)

Freedom and Justice Party vice-president Dusan Nikezic said on June 15 that despite the government's touting of "virtual economic successes" all of this was swept away when Eurostat publicized its official statistics on economic growth which show that Serbia has been at the bottom of Europe for the second year in a row now.

"With a GDP growth rate of just 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2023, Serbia is weaker than the European average and developed European countries, like Spain which saw 3.8 percent growth, Denmark which achieved a growth rate of 2.4 percent or Italy with 1.9 percent but also the countries in the region like Montenegro with 6.1 percent, Croatia with 2.6 percent, Romania with 2.8 percent, Bulgaria with 2.3 percent or North Macedonia with 2.1 percent," Nikezic stressed.

He also said that "Serbia is unstoppably sliding toward recession" and that this could be seen in the latest statistics "according to which the processing industry fell by 2.6 percent, retailing by 6.1 percent, capital investments by 43 percent, salaries in real terms by 1.5 percent, there was a decline in lending to the economy and a drop in VAT of 5.6 percent, despite inflation which has surpassed 15 percent."

"Even though (Minister of Finance) Sinisa Mali is boasting about us not taking on debt and allegedly saving up, his ministry's official information shows the opposite as the public debt in the last six months ago grew from EUR32.6bn to EUR35.5bn, meaning that this government has literally taken on an additional EUR16m in debt every day," Nikezic stressed.