Government debt

KOPAONIK - The negative economic growth rate will continue in the first quarter of this year and the positive growth is expected to start in the second quarter and last by the end of the year, Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic said on Tuesday.

"Economic growth starting in second quarter"

KOPAONIK -- The negative economic growth rate will continue in the first quarter while positive growth is expected to start in the second quarter Dusan Vujovic says.

That trend would continue through 2015, according to the finance minister.

Total government debt reached 978 billion leks (almost seven billion euro) at the end of last year, showing biggest year-on-year growth since 2009, according to official data from the debt management office.

It was the first time since 2000 that debt as a percentage of GDP has reached such a high level.

By David Goodman & Lucy Meakin

Bondholders who held their nerve as Greece sparred with the euro region are now reaping the rewards.

Public debt increase trend "will not persist"

BELGRADE -- The tendency of increase of Serbia's public debt reported in January "will not continue in February," Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic has said.

The public debt reached around EUR 23.2 billion or 72.3 percent of the country's GDP on January 31.

BELGRADE - The tendency of increase of Serbia's public debt, which totalled around EUR 23.2 billion or 72.3 percent of the country's GDP on January 31, will not continue in February because the country recorded a budget surplus in the first 50 days of the year, Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic stated on Tuesday.

BELGRADE - Serbia's Minister of Finance Dusan Vujovic said on Tuesday the fundamental goal of the new three-year arrangement with the IMF was to reduce the public debt share in GDP by 2017 and lower the budget deficit to around 3 percent of GDP.

Jevons Global founder and CIO Kingsley Jones point blank told CNBC on Monday that the Greek debt “is not repayable in this lifetime”.

“We have to be realistic here. Greek debt is now 175 percent of gross domestic product (GDP); it’s higher than it was when this whole business first started,” he emphasized.

Government Spokesman Gavriil Sakellaridis told private SKAI TV on Monday that the Greek government has acted responsibly in representing the Greek people and in its dealings with Greece's EU partners.

By Prokopis Hatzinikolaou