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December 1, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Western Balkans need up to six decades to catch up with the EU
Valentina Dimitrievska in Skopje
The six Western Balkans countries need six more decades for their income levels to catch up with those of the European Union if economies in the region continue to grow at the average speed achieved between 1995 and 2015, a new World Bank report said on November 30.
The Western Balkans: Revving Up the Engines of Growth and Prosperity report, which was released in Vienna, looks at how Albania, Bos- nia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mon- tenegro and Serbia can speed up economic growth and achieve faster income convergence with the EU.
“In recent years, the Western Balkan countries have made strides in reforming public finances
and rekindling economic growth, but citizens may not yet feel the benefits of this progress,” the World Bank's director for the Western Balkans, Linda Van Gelder, was cited as saying.
She said that focus on structural reforms can speed up economic growth in the six Western Balkans countries.
According to the report, reforms and macroeco- nomic stability that can enable average growth rates of 5% a year to allow the Western Balkans to converge with the EU in just two decades, instead of six decades.
While average growth in the region of 5%-6% annually in the years before 2008