Serbia seeks US $500m Russian loan

Serbia’s authorities are in talks with Russia to obtain a $500 million loan instead of the $1 billion loan Belgrade had earlier asked for to stabilize its budget, Serbian local newspaper Blic reported citing the country’s finance minister. “We do not a loan of $1 billion which we previously discussed with Russia, the newspaper quoted Finance Minister Mladan Dinkic as saying. Dinkic said the loan sum has been lowered as the liquidity of Serbia’s budget has considerably grown compared with last year, when the talks on the possible loan were launched. In January, Russia signed an $800 million export credit deal with Serbia. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov also announced that Russia was in talks over a possible $1 billion loan to Belgrade in 2013.