PRESS RELEASE

The Governor of the Central Bank of Montenegro Radoje Žugić, PhD and the Minister of Finance Darko Radunović, with staff, met today with the delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led by Martin Petri, Head of the IMF Mission to Montenegro.  The IMF Mission is staying in Montenegro for regular annual consultations in line with the Article IV of the Fund’s Statute.

State of the Montenegrin economy, results achieved in the previous year and plans and projections for the current year were discussed at the meeting.

The Governor Žugić emphasized that the banking sector generated excellent results in the previous year which have strengthened the financial system stability.  The growth trends has also continued in 2018 both for the lending activity and for deposits, while on the other hand the level of bad loans and interest rates have continued to decline.  The Governor informed the participants at the meeting that the CBM will initiate process to extend validity of the Law on Voluntary Financial Restructuring of Debts for another year, in order to achieve prerequisites for further incentives for the restructuring process.  Namely, application of this Law in the period from June 2017 to February 2018 has resulted in restructuring of debts in the amount of 23.7 million euro, which purports justifiability of this initiative.  The Governor added that future CBM activities will include, amongst others, improvement of the credit registry aimed at expanding its content and better updating.

The Minister Radunović emphasized that positive trends on the revenue side of the budget have continued in 2018, and presented preliminary data on the budget revenue collection for first two months of this year, which amounts to 188.6 million euro, or an improvement of 16.1% relative to the same period of the previous year.  He pointed out that the Government is working on documents addressing the public administration reform, with objective of optimizing the number of employees, and added that the focus of activities of Ministry of finance will be pointed at improving the competitiveness of the economy and also reduceing grey economy at the labour market and acise products market.

 

While thanking to CBM and the Ministry of Finance on cooperation during the mission in Montenegro, Mr. Petri has emphasized that excelled results concerning consolidation of public finances and improvement of financial stability were achieved in 2017, along with the economic growth.  The Head of the IMF Mission to Montenegro encouraged decision makers in Montenegro to continue with activities to further strengthen fiscal sustainability, strengthen financial stability and implement structural reforms.

The IMF mission wills stay in Montenegro until 7 March, when a media conference is scheduled were the findings of the mission concerning the state of the economy and outlook for the next period will be presented.