The World Bank said on Monday that it would invest more than 400 million US dollars in Serbia during the next two years to help reduce the poverty in the Balkan republic.

These investments aim to strengthen the private sector, boost privatization and restructuring, said Carolyn Junger, the director of the World Bank's office in Belgrade, in a meeting on the occasion of World Poverty Day.

The meeting was organized by the Serbian parliamentary Poverty Reduction Committee, the World Bank and the UN Development Program.

Junger said that the World Bank has approved 695 million dollars to Serbia since 2001, of which 30 million dollars in donations, and the reminder as loans for various programs.

She said that as many as 20 percent of Serbian citizens are at risk of sliding beneath the poverty limit.

According to estimates, there are about 1.5 million poor people in Serbia, while about three percent are rich.

Local experts have warned that poverty presents a big problem in Serbia because the transition process can have negative consequences for pensioners, the unemployed and unskilled workers and lead to the occurrence of new forms of poverty.

"Traditional forms of poverty that are linked with rural homes with small holdings, Romanies (Gypsies) and other endangered categories, are stagnating, while poverty in urban areas is on the increase," Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy Professor Slobodan Cvejic was quoted as saying by the national Tanjug news agency.

Source: Xinhua