the first, if not the most important, step towards success. at times i even ask myself : how is it possible that serbia has not outstripped switzerland long ago, when it has so many professing “ experts ” and “ know - alls “ who can tell you all about future developments in exchange rate and policy and economy long before they have even happened?! as regards the speed of transition, each citizen should decide on their own whether they are happy with its present pace or not. one thing, however, is sure : being in transition is like being on a plane – if engines stop, even for a minute, the plane will crash, whatever its speed! and an absurd thing about transition is that, while it lasts, problems need to be addressed by stepping things up, and not by slowing down. i have just returned from singapore, where i attended the annual meetings of the imf and the world bank group, and i would like to share with you the positive impressions from my stay in a city strewn with a multitude of billboards assuring visitors that they will be greeted by “ 4 million smiling faces of singaporeans. “ and it really was so. the difference between singapore and serbia lies not only in the fact that their per capita gdp is usd 30, 000 and ours only usd 3, 500, but also in the fact that the 7. 5 million of our citizens do not only show very little optimism, if any, but some of them still live in the past. the difference, as i said, is not only in the smile, or absence of it, but in an unlimited optimism, social energy and self - confidence that singaporeans display! i believe that we already have sufficient reasons to be satisfied more often, not only on important occasions, such as this, the 50th anniversary of cacanska banka, but also each time we succeed, in either private or business life. but in order for serbia to change, we must, each of us, change first. and this is the most difficult part of transition, which i myself, at the age of 38, still find hard to do!

##flow ( in eur mn ) ( in % of gdp ) 3, 000 2, 000 1, 000 1, 974. 9 1, 525. 0 482. 9 - 3, 000 - 4, 000 source : nbs. - 692. 2 - 703. 9 deficit : - eur 1. 3 bn january - june goods primary income current account 5. 3 5. 2 4. 8 4. 3 4. 0 4. 3 3. 5 2. 9 deficit : - eur 432 mn january - june services secondary income 5. 3 6. 2 5. 2 - 2, 603. 0 6. 9 5. 1 - 2, 520. 3 7. 8 6. 2 817. 4 - 1, 000 - 2, 000 7. 4 source : nbs. * nbs projection. 2021 * 2022 * cad net fdi at the same time, a strong inflow of fdi continued. in the first six months, it equalled eur 1. 73 bn, and if we add the operational data for july and the first ten days of august, fdi inflow since the start of the year equalled eur 2. 2 bn. for the sake of comparison with the previous year, fdi inflow in the first seven months is 30 % higher, which confirms that intensive inflow of investments from abroad has continued. fx reserves, which are also the result of overall balance of payment movements and constitute an important element of the domestic economy ’ s resilience to external shocks, increased even during the pandemic year of 2020. since the start of 2021, we have been faced with prevailing upward pressures on the dinar, which we mitigated through interventions in the interbank fx market by purchasing foreign exchange, whereby we further increased fx reserves. at end - july, their level was a record high eur 14. 6 bn and it covered more than six months ’ worth of goods and services import, which is double the standard that determines the adequacy of fx reserves. of this, eur 1. 8 bn pertains to 36. 7 tonnes of gold in our vaults. and i underline – in our vaults – because over the past months we managed to bring the last amounts of gold from abroad to serbia. chart 14 dinar exchange rate and nbs transactions in the fx market chart 13 fx reserves ( in eur bn ) ( eur /