SERBIA: CONGRESSIONALLY-MANDATED REPORT ON FISCAL

UNCLAS BELGRADE 000271 SIPDIS SIPDIS EEB/IFD/OMA ANDREW SNOW AND RICHARD FIGUEROA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID ECON PREL SR SUBJECT: SERBIA: CONGRESSIONALLY-MANDATED REPORT ON FISCAL TRANSPARENCY REF: STATE 16737 ¶1. In response to reftel request, below is the Embassy Belgrade's input on fiscal transparency in Serbia. ¶2. The Serbian state budget is transparent and publicly available at the Finance Ministry website www.mfin.sr.gov.yu. The budget is also available at the Serbian Parliament website at the www.parlament.sr.gov.yu and it is published in the Official Gazette of Serbia. Information on expenditures is available through the printed monthly publication Public Finances Bulletin, as well on the Finance Ministry website at www.mfin.sr.gov.yu/src/83 (English language at www.mfin.sr.gov.yu/eng/83). The Bulletin contains data on macroeconomic and fiscal developments, financial markets and public debt. Other Ministry of Finance publications are available at www.mfin.sr.gov.yu/src/20. ¶3. During budget planning, all revenues and expenditures are included in the publicly available budget. At the end of the year, in the final (concluding) account all revenues and expenditures are presented including also budget users' own revenues. However, final (concluding) accounts have not been ratified by the Parliament since 2002, thus they are presented at the Parliament website as "pending laws." ¶4. The U.S. government supports development of sound fiscal policies through programs such as the USAID-funded Serbia Economic Growth Project (SEGA). Through the SEGA project the United States provided support to budget transparency, mainly for information technology development. Also, the Treasury Department provided technical assistance via a resident advisor to the Ministry of Finance Debt Unit from October 2002 until September 2007 when this program ended. ¶5. The Serbian Ministry of Finance has several programs of cooperation with foreign donors regarding strengthening of fiscal policies, budget planning, capacity building, etc. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) through implementers Atos Consulting has a program named "Support to the Ministry of Finance in Straightening the Medium Term Expenditure Framework". UNDP is implementing project "Support to the Ministry of Finance, Phase III" (donor country is Netherlands). The EU through the European Agency for Reconstruction is assisting the Serbian Treasury with software and hardware for budget execution. The World Bank does not provide any assistance in the fiscal area. ¶6. The Serbian government works with the IMF and allows for public release of IMF reports following mission visits. IMF visits have included teams assessing Serbia's progress on standards and codes and the most recent report, from 2006, is available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2006/ cr0696.pdf. MUNTER