They have been a necessary backbone of our growth model, helping the Serbian economy to realize its catch-up potential in the absence of domestic savings. Before the crisis foreign savings financed most of our investments (the investment share was 28% of GDP and domestic savings around 8%).
However, looking back several years, the 25 percent appreciation of the dollar that occurred in 2014 was an important contributing factor to the previous noticeable decline in U.S. exports that took place in 2015 and 2016. Global financial markets also link the United States to the global economy, and developments abroad can spill over into domestic financial conditions, with material effects on domestic activity.