(Releads with IMF comment)
By Gordana Filipovic
BELGRADE, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Friday it would postpone its vote on a stand-by loan to Serbia until the second half of January to give Belgrade time to work out plans on inflation and financial sector stability.
"The vote has been postponed due to delays in the implementation and the assessment on fulfilling prior actions and the new board meeting will likely be held in the second half of January," the IMF said in a statement.
The parliament still has to approve the 2009 budget, with debate expected next week. The government and the central bank must agree on shared responsibilities for 2009 inflation targets and for ensuring financial sector stability.
Earlier in the day, central bank governor Radovan Jelasic told Beta news agency in an interview that the IMF vote, due for approval on Dec. 19, was postponed on "technical grounds."
He said the memorandum on inflation targeting, setting a 6-10 percent inflation target for 2009, will specify to what degree the government will take over responsibility for state-controlled prices.
Prices of electricity, crude oil derivatives, utilities and staples will be allowed to rise by up to 13 percent.
Some sources in the government said the IMF was unhappy with the way Serbia calculated some of its planned borrowing for 2009. "The borrowing and spending plans do not exactly match the planned deficit of 1.5 percent," a senior source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Serbia and the IMF agreed to a 15-month, $516 million stand-by deal on Nov. 14, obliging the government to cut the 2009 fiscal gap to 1.5 percent of GDP, down from 2.7 percent this year.
The government had hoped the deal would reassure investors that its policies were on track despite the financial crisis. Some institutional lenders, such as the World Bank, have linked their future lending to Serbia's IMF deal.
Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner for economics, said this week that Serbia would feel little benefit from the stand-by deal, as tight fiscal and monetary policies that need to be pursued under the agreement could weaken the economy.
The central bank has already raised its key policy rate to 17.75 percent in an effort to prop up the dinar, the biggest loser among east and central European currencies which have been hit by a flight of risk-averse capital.
But its efforts to bolster the dinar, following its fall to post-2000 lows of 92.45/euro a week ago, have had little impact.
The central bank sold 26 million euros at 87.50 dinars on Friday to boost liquidity in the interbank market, where banks traded the pair at 88.00/euro for much of the day.
"The postponed vote on the deal is certainly not good news. It may again hit confidence, which has not been at its best for more than two months now," a senior banker said. (Editing by Adam Tanner/Victoria Main)