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Serb President Wants Central Bank Chief to Stay Another Term

Serb President Wants Central Bank Governor to Stay Another Term

(Bloomberg) -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said for the first time that he wants central bank Governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic to stay on for another term in office after her mandate ends in August.

Tabakovic, a senior member of Vucic’s Progressive Party who took over the central bank in 2012, has delivered results, Vucic said, adding that he wants her to remain at the helm of the National Bank of Serbia.

Serb President Wants Central Bank Chief to Stay Another Term

“I didn’t even think about any changes,” Vucic said Wednesday in an interview in the Presidential Palace in Belgrade, the capital. “Things are better than ever. We have a very strong dinar, we’re working together on macroeconomic stabilization, fiscal consolidation and we delivered very, very good results. If she wants to stay, she will stay.”

During Tabakovic’s term, the central bank tightened control over the dinar to reduce daily fluctuations against the euro. Monetary-policy makers lowered the benchmark interest rate to a record 3 percent in April from 11.75 percent in 2013, helping to bolster growth through cheaper lending.

“As long as I have the support of Aleksandar Vucic to continue what we’ve started, I have the will to maintain the established financial stability,” Tabakovic said in an emailed response when asked to comment on a possible second term. “We’ve given a new meaning to the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy.”

Despite media reporting that changes in government personnel are on the way sometime in the next two months, Vucic said a reshuffle of Prime Minister Ana Brnabic’s cabinet isn’t imminent. Asked if he’d be willing to let Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic leave, following newspaper reports that his place may be vacated in the shakeup, Vucic said “it’s not about letting anyone go,” and that people who want to are free to step down.

“We’ll speak about that when we have something on Kosovo,” Vucic said, referring to talks to settle the dispute between the two sides. “It doesn’t matter if it’s going to be in 15 days or a month or two months. There’s a need to speak about an entire package. But whoever wants to resign, whoever wants to leave the government, it’s their right to do so. ”

To contact the reporters on this story: Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at gfilipovic@bloomberg.net, Jasmina Kuzmanovic in Zagreb at jkuzmanovic@bloomberg.net, Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Andrew J. Barden

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