Vucic: EUR 130 Million Required for Gas, EPS Requesting RSD 3 Billion

The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said that the budget revenues of Serbia from the VAT, customs fees, excise taxes and income taxes, as of January 15, amounted to RSD 80 billion, and that RSD 68 billion had been expected, so there would be EUR 100 million more in the state budget.

– I have good news for the people. Our expected revenues were RSD 68 billion, and we will have nearly RSD 80 billion. The domestic VAT was excellent, which means that we did a fantastic job in December, there was even more spending than we expected. We will thereby have EUR 100 million more in the budget than we expected – Vucic said on TV Happy.

He pointed out that “a payment of EUR 130 million for the gas is due, because the losses of Srbijagas are huge” and that Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) was seeking additional help of RSD 3 billion and that urgent reforms were therefore needed.

– We will cover all that so that people wouldn’t worry, with minimal price adjustments – Vucic said.

He added that he was worried about the possibility of investments being withdrawn, as was the case in Russia, where the interest was bigger than in Serbia.

– Last year, we had EUR 4.416 billion in foreign investments – Vucic said and pointed out that “the EU is important and it is important to stay on the road to Europe”.

He emphasized that he was worried about the high price of money and added that Serbia had 1% higher interest rates in the market due to Kosovo and 0.5% due to not imposing sanctions on Russia.

He said that, whatever happened, public debt would not exceed 57-58% of the gross domestic product.

He added that he expected the average salary in January to be EUR 735 and for it to be EUR 820 by the end of the year.

JP Srbijagas Novi Sad

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

Srbijagas

Elektroprivreda Srbije

EPS

Aleksandar Vučić

VAT revenues

customs fees revenues

excise tax revenues

income tax revenues

imposing sanctions on Russia

public debt level

average salary in January