Politika javnih investicija u Srbiji usmerena na podsticanje rasta - više i efikasnije

Abstract

In the last few years Serbia has restored its macroeconomic stability, primarily due to successful fiscal consolidation, but economic growth remained insufficient for faster convergence with other European countries. One of the reasons for sluggish growth is related to low domestic private and public investment. From 2001 to 2018 public investment in Serbia amounted to 2.6% of GDP on average, which was the lowest in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Western Balkans (WB). Although its public investment has risen in the last few years, Serbia is still lagging behind the CEE and WB countries in that respect, especially in terms of the local self-government investment. In that period, cumulative public investment in Serbia was lower than the CEE average and WB average by 33% of GDP and by more than 40% of GDP, respectively, although total government expenditures in Serbia were rather large. Due to many years of severe underinvestment, the total public capital stock (per capita) in Serbia is the lowest in CEE and the WB region, which is why Serbia is among the three lowest ranked countries in terms of the overall quality of infrastructure in CEE and the WB. The public investment policy may yield significant positive impact on future growth in Serbia, provided that the following two conditions are met: i) public investment increases to 4-5% of GDP and remains at that level in a fiscally sustainable manner for at least a decade, ii) the efficiency of investment projects, in terms of selection, contracting, implementation and supervision, is significantly improved.