Serbian economy makes RSD 23 billion loss

BELGRADE – The Serbian economy incurred a loss of RSD 23 billion last year, a four times smaller sum than in 2012, and losses were greatest in the transportation and warehousing and the processing industry sectors, Ruzica Stamenkovic, registrar at the Serbian Business Registers Agency, said Tuesday.

Presenting Serbia’s economic results for 2013 at a news conference, Stamenkovic said the transportation and warehousing sector had operated at a loss of RSD 62 billion, 2.7 times as much as the loss of the entire economy, in the year.

The processing industry’s losses increased to 41 billion in 2013 from three billion in 2012.

“The reasons for business results being so bad in the two sectors come from their over-indebtedness and inability to cover debts with either operating income or new loans,” said Stamenkovic.

The number of employees in Serbia’s economy fell below one million for the first time last year as the trend of downsizing continued, she said.

Serbia's economy had a total of 991,030 workers in 2013, 18,970 fewer than a year earlier, she said.

Stamenkovic also said that the reduction in losses for the entire economy in 2013 was a sign of the economic crisis easing slowly, and a modest recovery of the domestic economy could be seen in an annual GDP growth of 2.5 percent.

She said that exports had gone up by as much as one-fourth in 2013 compared to the year before, crucial for bringing the economy, however slowly, back to life again.

Accumulated losses grew by 13.9 percent in 2013 compared to 2012 and the amount is RSD 2.857 billion, she said.

As a consequence, corporate capital loss rate increased from 35.9 percent to 38.9 percent, Stamenkovic said.