Montenegrin economy is going in a good direction, but that shouldn’t be the reason for euphoria. However, in comparison to the period two years ago, the situation is much better, says economic analyst and professor at the Faculty of Management, Dr Vasilije Kostić. In order to give a reasonable grade of Marković’s Government for these two years, we should bear in mind where it started and what economic indicators were like back then-high debt and high budget deficit, high unemployment rate, poor public finances…
“Public debt has increased and I believe it will keep on increasing. Budget deficit is still high but with tendencies to go down, unemployment decreased by 4%. Public finances are in consolidation phase, and this process will take a while. Tax income is increasing, FDI increased by 50%, which is very important”, says Kostić.
Ministry and the NTO are responding properly to the growing wave in tourism in the world. This made Montenegro a famous tourism destination in Europe and worldwide.
“That fact shall not be neglected. Quite the opposite, tourism contributed significantly to our economic recovery and is constantly contributing to maintaining balance“, says Kostić.
The fundamental generator of budget deficit, current expenditure, is kept under control. External imbalance, growth of import in relation to the export, is still very high and not favorable.
Another key question is the improvement of the business environment.
“It shouldn’t be the case that we got worse regrading this matter. We must not allow ourselves to move backwards in many domains, even less important than this one. But the worst thing is that our competent authorities are not aware enough of the need for constant improvement of business environment”, says Kostić.
Kostić thinks that, in the future, Government should seriously deal with social stratification and inequality since it can be a barrier to economic progress.
