efforts it has been avoided. according to our estimates, in serbia, if we did not react fast and strong, our gdp would have fallen by more than 6 % last year, and the recovery would have taken three to five years, instead of one. the price of non - responding would have been too high, and it would be measured by undermined stability, lost jobs and lost billions of euros of potential gdp. at the beginning i said that serbia entered the crisis in excellent shape : inflation has been under our control for more than seven years, 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches we have built a strong fiscal position we resolved the npl legacy – npls are no longer an issue in serbia, we increased our fx reserves as a good buffer against external shocks, we strongly improved our external position. i gave just some results because one of the conclusions by all key players is that the countries that had built good fundamentals before the crisis were in a better position to react strongly and swiftly by large and timely support programmes. the national bank of serbia was the first institution in the country to react at the beginning of the crisis. to stimulate the economy, the nbs reacted timely and forcefully, by using different instruments. we lowered the key policy rate four times - to 1 %, and we kept good access to finance and favourable financing conditions for the government, banks and the private sector. the nbs was the lender of first resort in times when this was needed the most. to provide liquidity we used different monetary operations of different maturities and currencies, to send a clear signal that the central bank will be there to support people and companies, and to calm the market and prevent potential panic. we used repo purchase auctions, bilateral outright purchase of government securities in the secondary market, and we also included corporate bonds in collateral for our monetary operations. the nbs was also among the first regulators to introduce a moratorium for all debtors. also, by several measures we additionally facilitated access to financing for our households, especially to housing financing. when it was needed, the nbs intervened in the fx market and kept relative stability of the dinar exchange rate against the euro, as this is one of the most important pillars of the overall macroeconomic stability in serbia. on top of this, our communication was clear – to shocks of temporary nature we respond by temporary measures. when it comes to the government response, we had three well - calibrated packages. the

national bank of serbia introductory speech inflation report – february 2023 dr jorgovanka tabakovic, governor belgrade, 14 february 2023 ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the press, dear colleagues, welcome to the presentation of the february inflation report, where we shall present the current macroeconomic developments in the international environment and at home, our latest macroeconomic projections, as well as the measures we have undertaken in the period since the previous report. at the very start, i would like to underline several key facts with regard to the current macroeconomic movements and our latest projections : – firstly, due to the weakening of global cost - push pressures, decline in imported inflation and effects of monetary policy measures, for the first time in two years the projected inflation for the current year is at a lower level than in the prior projection, and the projection for 2024 has been lowered to an even greater extent. we now expect inflation to return within the target tolerance band in mid - 2024, which is sooner than previously expected. – secondly, unlike the previous inflation projection, where we saw very pronounced risks skewed to the upside, we now judge the risks to be less pronounced and that it is equally likely that inflation in 2023 and 2024 turns out lower than projected. – though we did not change the projected 2. 0 % – 3. 0 % gdp growth rate for this year with which we came out in november, we now estimate that it is much more certain that it will indeed materialise. the reason for this is the fact that we have practically come out of winter months, which are particularly risky in terms of energy supply to europe, and that global economic slowdown is not as strong as initially expected. the current and projected global energy prices are lower, and the euro area has so far managed to avoid recession. – developments that are more favourable than expected are best visible in the domain of the balance of payment movements. the current account deficit in 2022 was lower than projected in november and amounted to 6. 9 % of gdp, as a result of faster real growth in goods and services export and lower than expected energy import at the end of the year. according to our new projection, this year, we expect the share of the current account deficit in gdp to remain similar as in 2022, instead of more than 9 % as expected in november. 1 оf 10 – equally important is that even in such a difficult situation, once again, for the eighth