Better investment climate condition for more jobs

Better investment climate condition for more jobs

BELGRADE -- Attracting new investors and creation of a better investment climate is the right way to create "hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Serbia."

This is according to newly-appointed Minister of Economy Dušan Vujović.

He said that a drop of unemployment may be expected only after the structure of Serbia's economy changes and new investments begin flowing in, simultaneously with an improvement of business and investment climate.

Vujović told RTS late on Monday that assistance would be given to the economy's private sector in three ways, including introduction of efficient incentive measures for most productive areas, changes in regulations which pose a problem to opening of new jobs, and especially by reduction of government interventions in the economy.

Public enterprise restructuring will introduce management standards which are maintained in the private sector everywhere, Vujović said and added that control mechanisms need to be strengthened at the same time.

Another novelty is that the Serbian parliament would be included in supervision of the work done by public enterprises.

Responding to the question as to when the restructuring in 153 public companies would be completed, Vujović noted that the next step after May 14, when the government is due to stop protecting the companies from creditors in keeping with the decision of the Constitutional Court, would be to look for solutions, including the closedown of companies with no perspective.

A social programme or retraining for will be provided to employees who end up redundant and new companies, primarily in the private sector, will be launched from the pool of...