On the day when the Assembly indebted Serbia for another 768.8 million euros, the Minister of Finance and MPs continued to repeat that we have never done better and that the path of unrestrained borrowing is actually the right path of progress. According to the Minister, investments will be made in ecology, roads and railways because that is a precondition for the arrival of investors and for the economic growth.
“If we continue to grow at this rate, there will certainly be room for a further increase in salaries, a further increase in pensions, despite, [as] I’ve just said, the biggest economic crisis, caused by the covid-19. You can see that a large number of countries in the world are still suffering the consequences of that. Unlike [these countries], that are more developed and bigger than Serbia, Serbia is moving forward unstoppably and rapidly. The growth rates of our economy confirm this.”
Why so many loans then, how are we going to repay them, what are the interest rates, have we spent previous debts and how? No, there were no questions like this. The MPs were happy to support the government’s proposal.
“In the year marked by the coronavirus, in the first six months, our foreign direct investments grew by about 19%. That is important news for Serbia. In order to have even more news like this, we need to support these proposals, which will, of course, affect the faster development of the economy and our country in general.“
“With such dynamics and projections, we should end this year with over three billion euros of foreign direct investments, which tells you that Serbia is a desirable economic destination in which both foreign and local investors want to open their production capacities.“
“With the dedicated and persistent work of our President Aleksandar Vučić and his team in March this year, despite the global problem that arose due to the coronavirus pandemic, the average salary amounted to as much as 555 euros and we expect that in January 2022 it will be 612 euros.“
“Through Vučić’s economic doctrine, we have now [achieved] to have at least one factory in every city, in every municipality. We have opened opportunities […] for our citizens and for our young people and everyone, which is the most important […].“
“We are witnesses that Serbia is developing rapidly, that the standard of living of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia is increasing and that the inflow of both local and foreign investments is increasing, which leads to a decrease in the unemployment rate in our country below 10%. The reason for that is, first of all, the successfully implemented reforms in our country, but above all, the reputation that our President Aleksandar Vučić and the Government of the Republic of Serbia have in the world.“
“The goals set by our President Aleksandar Vučić in the Serbia 20-25 programme are clear. It is the average salary of 900 euros in the Republic of Serbia.“
And as one MP expertly said, today we have a lot of investments, and I guess we are raising loans so that we can pile them up.
For the Open Parliament, Mirjana Nikolić