Serbia enters recession

BELGRADE - Serbia has entered a recession, according to estimates, and the only question is whether it is for a short term or if it is a negative trend, economist Stojan Stamenkovic said at the start of the presentation of the latest Makroekonomske analize i trendovi (MAT) bulletin on Tuesday.

The recession and financial pressure is not present only in Serbia, by throughout the region and Europe ever since the start of this year, he pointed out.
"If economic activity does not pick up, there can be no financial consolidation," he stated, adding that Serbia's industrial production, import and export had been dropping in recent months, and that deflation was particularly present.

The economists working on MAT say that the drop in GDP this year will be around 1 percent, and that there are no indications that the drop in production and export will not continue next year.

"The total industrial production in August this year, was 13.1 percent less than in August 2013, and the cumulative year-on-year drop in the first 8 months was 4.3 percent," MAT editor Vladimir Vuckovic remarked.

Manufacturing has gone down as well and the reduction cannot be linked to the May floods, he said.

Production in the top 10 manufacturing sectors is dropping, and they make up three quarters of the manufacturing industry, he stated.

The downward trends became a general characteristic of the economic activity in Serbia this summer, and the year-on-year changes in August are deeply negative when it comes to industrial production, export and import, Vuckovic noted.

Industrial production was affected by the drop in motor vehicle production, which was at just 20 percent of its 2013 monthly in August and 70 perctent...