jorgovanka tabakovi : development of financial industry in the digital economy era address ( via video ) by dr jorgovanka tabakovi, governor of the national bank of serbia, at the opening ceremony of the 20th china international finance forum, 14 december 2023. * * * esteemed hosts, esteemed participants of the china international finance forum, it is a great honour to address you for again on behalf of the republic of serbia and the national bank of serbia, at the helm of which i have been for more than eleven years. dear friends, three years ago i said that it was not easy to speak about financial services in the digital economy era to you who are leaders in this area. but, it is not difficult either, because china is the type of leader who helps and encourages others to make progress as well. serbia is a good example of this, which is also reflected in the economic and financial cooperation underpinned by the mutual respect and friendship of the serbian president aleksandar vui and the chinese president xi jinping. in the past ten years, china has become serbia's important foreign trade partner. our cooperation has strengthened for an entire decade, ever since we signed the joint statement on deepening strategic partnership, making serbia the first country in central and east europe to set up strategic partnership with the people's republic of china. during this year's belt and road forum for international cooperation, we also signed 18 important agreements, of which the free trade agreement between our two countries is the most important one. china was the second - largest foreign investor in serbia in 2020 and 2021, and the largest foreign investor in 2022, with investments worth usd 1. 5 bn. thus, a third of the record - high fdis to serbia in 2022 came from china. trade in goods increased as much as 5. 4 times in the past ten years, with china becoming serbia's second most important trade partner in 2022. in january 2015, the national bank of serbia included the chinese yuan in the list of currencies traded in the serbian fx market. in 2021 and 2022 the chinese yuan was among the four top currencies traded between domestic banks and their clients in the serbian fx market, which is another important indicator of the strength of our economic and overall relations. with the people's bank of china, we concluded the memorandum of understanding on designating a clearing bank for chinese yuans in serbia, creating conditions

to 3. 0 % this and 3. 5 % next year, driven, as so far, by investment and exports ( which posted an exceptionally high growth rate in 2016 ). household consumption is likely to provide an increasing contribution, mostly owing to the recovery in the labour market. as exports significantly outpaced imports in 2016, the trade deficit narrowed by 21 % compared to the year before. reflecting further improvement of the investment ambience, the inflow of foreign direct investment was high and project - diversified – most notably in export - oriented sectors. it came close to eur 1. 9 billion in 2016 and was more than sufficient to cover the current account deficit. furthermore, thanks to all results of macroeconomic stabilisation, an international financial institution issued the first long - term dinar security. namely, in december last year the ebrd issued a three - year dinar bond, which will be traded on the belgrade stock exchange. the dinar proceeds will be on - lent to local enterprises, notably smes. this move underpins the dinarisation process, which remains among our strategic commitments. finally, please remember these figures, they are very simple. we ended last year with year - on - year inflation of 1. 6 %, the fiscal deficit of 1. 4 %, the current account deficit of 4 %, and the npl level of 17 %. we intend to further improve these results which have exceeded the expectations of many. ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, thank you for your attention. i will now give the floor to my colleagues.