in making monetary policy decisions in the coming period as well. chart 5 oil and copper price movements ( average monthly prices, in usd ) chart 6 prices of primary agricultural commodities and their futures 10, 000 9, 000 8, 000 ( usd / t ) 7, 000 6, 000 5, 000 4, 000 3, 000 2, 000 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 price of brent oil per barrel ( lhs ) brent oil futures ( lhs ) price of copper per ton ( rhs ) source : bloomberg. copper futures ( rhs ) 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 corn wheat source : cbot - chicago boаrd of trade. during the first quarter, uncertainty and volatility in the international financial market also increased. the character of monetary policies of leading central banks diverged further amid the still present uncertainty in terms of the pace of their normalisation in the coming period and, in turn, movements in the dollar / euro relationship, as well as capital flows towards emerging economies. despite this, global financial conditions are still favourable. strengthening domestic fundamentals – a response to external challenges it is a fact that there have been and there still will be external challenges going forward. we cannot impact them, but only mitigate their effects. therefore structural improvements of our economy and the narrowed internal and external imbalances have been of particular importance as they boosted our resilience to negative effects of global factors. in conditions of rising corporate profitability, positive tendencies in the labour market and higher efficiency of tax collection, favourable fiscal movements continued in 2018 as well, with a surplus of around 0. 4 % of gdp in the first quarter. chart 7. fiscal trends chart 8 current account deficit and net fdi inflow ( in % of gdp ) - 5. 5 - 6. 8 - 2. 7 - 6. 6 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 source : ministry of finance. consolidated result ( rhs ) interest payments ( rsh ) revenues ( lhs ) expenditures ( lhs ) 2019 * - 4. 8 - 3. 2 - 3. 7 - 4. 6 - 2. 9 - 3. 1 2018 *

to economic recovery. although the international cooperation during the pandemic also showed some weaknesses, it is still necessary – for the preservation of both health and global financial stability. let me remind you that the imf estimated that without the synchronized measures, the global economic contraction would have been at least three times worse and a new great depression could have taken place. owing to our extraordinary joint efforts, we managed to avoid it. if we did not live in a globalised world, in which we depend on each other, it is disputable whether we would have managed to develop the vaccines within only ten months after the pandemic broke out. serbia is perhaps the only country which, at that moment, enabled its citizens to choose among four different vaccines. we are also proud that serbia enabled the vaccination of not only its citizens, but also the citizens from other countries of the region, under equal conditions. moreover, we donated vaccines to the countries that needed them the most, and this is the solidarity that we 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches would like to be more present in international relations. ( slide 3 ) the national bank of serbia cooperates with international organisations in a way that it strives to build partnership relations. serbia inherited the legal subjectivity of the former socialist federal republic of yugoslavia, which was one of the founders of the imf and the world bank, while the national bank of the kingdom of yugoslavia became a member of the bank for international settlements back in 1931. through successful implementation of advisory, nonfinancial arrangements with the imf, we have confirmed our commitment to the implementation of a credible development policy. through close cooperation with the european bank for reconstruction and development, we have also enabled the development of the dinar capital market. by participating in credit lines of the european investment bank for small and mediumsized enterprises, we created more than ten thousand new jobs. still, we do not rely on cooperation in order to copy others ’ solutions, because we believe monetary policy must be adequate for national circumstances, while at the same time acknowledging of the external environment. i am particularly proud of the model of repo auctions we developed in 2012, that enabled us to react by tightening monetary conditions if necessary, without changing the corridor of basic interest rates. this is exactly what we are doing currently. switching to the auction model with a variable interest rate while limiting the volume of liquidity being absorbed at repo auctions, adopted in late 2012, implied a