Serbia, IMF to start technical talks on stand-by arrangement

IMF representatives and Serbian officials start technical talks Thursday (August 19th) within the fifth review under Serbia’s 2.9 billion-euro stand-by agreement with the Fund. Ahead of the talks, Serbia’s Finance Minister Diana Dragutinovic confirmed that public wages and pensions will remain at their current level until April 2011. But in an interview Wednesday with TV station B92, she conceded that Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic’s proposal to raise public salaries and pensions as early as this autumn will be discussed, as economists have different theories on overcoming the crisis.