Serbian Official Offers Economic Advice

For those Americans and Harvardians mired in the gloom of the global financial crisis, a top Serbian politician offered some much-needed optimism at Harvard yesterday.

Amid a global downturn, Serbia has fared comparatively well, and Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinkic, also the Minister for Economy and Regional Development, said the United States needed to follow the small Balkan nation’s lead to revive its economy.

Dinkic, who said he was in the country in part to discuss economic issues with a group of U.S. senators, gave suggestions for U.S. recovery to a packed room of students, academics, and professionals at the Kennedy School yesterday.

Dinkic said the United States has struggled so far because it has neither allowed failing financial institutions to fall nor given rescued banks enough money to jump start lending.

Dinkic pointed to his own experience as governor of Serbia’s Central Bank, where he said he allowed four major banks to fold in one day in 2002 because the Serbian people had no confidence in them.

Still, Dinkic expressed support for the Obama administration’s stimulus efforts, cautioning that the American public must be patient.

“They are rebuilding confidence, but lending must start to move,” Dinkic said.

Throughout his lecture, Dinkic spoke with a sustained optimism. At one point a self-conscious laugh about the controversial former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s “irresponsible spending” drew a ripple of chuckles from the room.

Dinkic’s cheery attitude also appeared to help him avoid controversy on issues such as Serbia’s trade agreement with Iran—which he explained by saying that nation “pays everything promptly”—and tension surrounding Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last year and is recognized as independent by major nations including Great Britain, France, and the United States, though not Serbia,

Dinkic’s upbeat message pleased the lecture’s organizers.

“We were happy to be able to sponsor someone with a message of proactive measures for the future,” said Ilyana M. Sawka, program coordinator of the Kennedy School’s Kokkalis Program, which runs initiatives for southeast and east-central Europe.

Boston-area professionals said they appreciated Dinkic’s frankness.

“It’s impressive that he is as optimistic as he is, focusing on the future,” said Kristen Rupert, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance for International Business.

Yet some left the lecture frustrated by Dinkic’s vagueness.

Mira Popopic, who said she was a University of Massachusetts Ph.D., challenged Dinkic’s call for Serbian experts to return to the country, saying she would move home “tomorrow” if the country had a job for her.

But Dinkic avoided answering her question, instead speaking at length about handling adversity in the job market and remaining hopeful.

Still, Dinkic’s message was largely appreciated.

“It’s a tough economic situation so it’s difficult to do things on a larger scale,” Rupert said in response to the awkward exchange. “But it’s important to plant the seeds.”

For his part, Dinkic said he was happy to share his time and opinions with the United States, which he called the key to solving the global crisis, and the Harvard community in particular.

“The name of Harvard University is synonymous with quality,” Dinkic said. “It has a strong role in U.S. politics as it produces the important politicians.”

—Staff writer Alexander R. Konrad can be reached at akonrad@fas.harvard.edu.