Yugoslavia’s “success”

Despite powerful opposition of the US, Yugoslavia still received an IMF 3-year loan of 829 million dollars; 64 million dollars from this loan were paid to Belgrade yesterday.

At the beginning of this year, the US Congress voted for the prohibition of rendering financial assistance to Yugoslavia. Despite this, Yugoslavia managed to receive this credit, which, according to the BBC, means the US’s readiness to review its relations with Yugoslavia. Today, the credit is the main subject of the Yugoslav press. Radio Yugoslavia quotes the most interesting publications on the subject. The press’s estimations are rather optimistic, which, in short, can be formulated as follows: at least the West showed its “confidence in our economical policy,” while the new three-year agreement with the IMF could be a good stimulus for restoring the country’s economy. The Central newspaper published the statement of Mladan Dincic, the head of People’s Bank of Yugoslavia: thanks to this credit, “we have gone over from crisis financing to long-term financing.”

Belgrade Politika cites the opinion of the deputy chairman of the federal government, Miroljub Labus. Labus supposes that the apportion of money is the “news of the year for Yugoslavia in the foreign policy.” The state’s rating in international financial and economical circles depends on IMF support, which also confirms that Yugoslavia meets its financial and political obligation, Labus blieves. Belgrade Blic writes that, with this step, the IMF showed possible investors that Yugoslavia “is now a stable country with solid currency reserves and a steady balance of payment, so investments in our country are no longer connected with a risk, as it was before.” Mladan Dinkovic ,quoted by Blic, stated that the government should now take measures to “turn the macroeconomic stability into stability on the macroeconomic level” – in other words, average citizens should feel the effect of economic policy through increasing their living standards. Danas believes that “the best times” for the citizens have not yet come. The newspaper commented upon the recent statement of Serb premier Zoran Jinjic that the republican government has no serious social program, and such a program would cost for the budget 10 to 15 billion dollars. Sums like that are simply unreal for the state. There is no money to restore unprofitable works, to multiply the quantity of working places etc. “To reach the level of a civilized community, a high price must be paid,” Danas resumes. The Dnevnik Novi Sad newspaper stated that “so far, currency reserves have flown away from the country; however, it was forbidden by the law,” though, now, “liberalization of the dinar needs further inflow of capital from abroad and decreasing of yearly percentage in the native market.”

Sergei Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/15/41128.html