BELGRADE, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Final quarter of 2018 was under Serbia's estimated average when it comes to both industrial production and real growth, Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS) revealed on Thursday.
Despite that, the country's industrial production increased by 1.3 percent year on year in 2018, according to the SORS.
Statistics from the SORS shows that the industrial production decreased in December 2018 by 6.3 percent over the same period of 2017, due to drops in manufacture of food products, generation of electricity, manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, as well as manufacture of metal products, except machinery and equipment and manufacture of chemicals and chemical products.
However, data for the whole 2018 show an overall increase of 1.3 percent over 2017. Serbia saw an increase of 1.9 percent in the manufacturing industry, a 1.2 percent increase in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, but a decrease of 4.8 percent in mining and quarrying.
The SORS issued a flash estimation that the real GDP growth for the Q4 of 2018 is expected to be at 3.5 percent, which is below the 2018 estimated average real growth of 4.4 percent.
SORS revealed that the number of registered employees increased by 3.3 percent compared to 2017, with some 68,000 being newly registered.
The overall external trade amounted to 45.1 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 15.9 percent compared to 2017.
European Union member countries accounted for 63.2 percent of total external trade.
Serbia's biggest partners when it comes to import were Germany, Italy, and China, while its main exporting partners were Italy, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
When it comes to structure, Serbia mostly exported electrical machines and apparatus, road vehicles, iron and steel, rubber products and non-ferrous metals. While at the same time, Serbia mostly imported oil and oil derivatives, road vehicles, electrical machines and apparatus, industrial general-purpose machinery, as well as iron and steel.
