The Government, trade union, economic analysts cannot decide the year when the GDP growth and investments in motorway, tourism projects, energy and agriculture will exert profound influence on standard of citizens… But everybody agrees that the key is in fuller employment and reduction in number of unemployed.
The Ministry of Finance reports that numerous investments and projects have already impacted on the standard in certain sense. However, representatives of the Union of Free Trade Unions think that the impact is insignificant.
“Although Montenegro has been recording solid economic growth in last years, it didn’t influence citizens’ standard very much. Average salary has been the same for two years, 40.000 people don’t have jobs, pension system is unsustainable, great number of employees works illegally and so on”, say the representatives of the Ministry.
According to the estimates of analysts, public debt will stop increasing after the construction of motorway, which is not before 2020.
“Loan taken in dollars for he purposes of the motorway causes huge problems in the currency risk due to the dollar exchange rate growth and all the additional repayment burden is imposed on citizens. We can only hope that the European currency is going to strengthen and, therefore, more favorable repayment conditions will be provided”.
One of the biggest shortcomings of the contract signed with CBRC is that the costs of access loop, electric and water supply network for the motorway haven’t been calculated and, therefore, the citizens will have to empty their pockets. That affects the standard. In addition, it’s obvious that even agricultural potentials haven’t been exploited enough.
“One of the key elements for achieving higher economic growth and boasting standard is the establishment of mechanisms of responsibility at all management levels, as well as efficient fight against crime and corruption. It’s important to adapt to technological changes and change the directions of economy development. Crucial tasks: stop the increase of public debt, reinforce the competition in banking sector, strengthen the potential in agricultural sector, collection of tax debt, implementation of major infrastructure projects and many more”, say the representatives of Trade union.
Vasilije Kostić, the economic analyst, says that economic growth is not enough for good life standard.
“It’s not that simple. Economic growth, although desirable and necessary, isn’t enough to improve quality of life of citizens. The effects of economic growth aren’t distributed equally, that’s the problem. Then one small number of people „feels“ the effects of economic growth in a very short period of time while others – almost never feel those effects”, says Kostić.
