MAT: Data Show That Serbia’s Economic Growth is Dropping

The data from May do not confirm the conclusions from the previous issues of the Makroekonomske analize i trendovi (MAT) publication, which said that the economic activities were accelerating, says the latest issue of MAT, a publication of the Institute of Economics in Belgrade.

It is claimed that the May data are showing a reverse, downward trend in the total industry and in the manufacturing industry, because the deseasoned indices recorded a sharp drop in May.

The year-on-year growth was indeed high in May as well, but not at the level that the low base from last year’s May would require, MAT writes.

It is said that there was a high y-o-y increase in foreign trade in May as well, but the import growth rate exceeded the export growth rate in that month. Over the whole five-month period, the export rate was considerably higher than the import rate.

When it comes to the export-import coverage ratio, in the first five months, it was 78.1%, but in May it dropped to 73.4%.

It is said that the inflation accelerated in May too, with the month seeing the biggest y-o-y increase in consumer prices since 2017.

In May, the overall industrial production increased by 9.4% y-o-y, in the January-May period, the increase was 10.3%, and within that framework, the production of the manufacturing industry grew by 11.1% in May and by 11.3% in the January-May period.

Ekonomski Institut a.d. Beograd

Makroekonomske analize i trendovi

production of beverages

minerals

metal products

electrical equipment

statistics

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industrial production

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