BELGRADE: The International Monetary Fund will review the implementation of its 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion) loan deal with Serbia in the first week of May, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
In February, the IMF signed off on a precautionary loan deal with Serbia after it pledged to reform the public sector and cut the consolidated deficit to around 6 percent of national output in 2015 from over 7 percent last year.
The government has already cut pensions and public sector wages in late 2014.
"The IMF visit is expected in the first week of May and is the first of their regular checks of the agreement with the fund," the senior official said, declining to be named.
Daehaeng Kim, the head of IMF mission to Serbia, told Belgrade's N1 TV that experts would start checking Serbian finances between May 4 and May 12.
The report also quoted Kim as saying that Serbia was showing signs of recovery.
"It is true there are signs of recovery, that results are better than expected, but we still need to make a serious analysis to see ... are they sustainable," he said.
Last month, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said the budget deficit at the end of the first quarter would be half that agreed with the IMF, and that there could be a gradual increase in public sector wages and pensions.
The wage cuts have caused Vucic's government to face strikes of schoolteachers and workers from some state enterprises.
Economists have warned that the improvement of Serbia's budget deficit in the first quarter may be temporary due to one-off dividend payments by public enterprises, less capital investment and improved collection of value-added tax.
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