Long-term evaluation of water price growth in Serbia

Structural reforms in the water sector have been initiated during the last two decades. This trend has resulted in numerous transformations. In accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, one of the priorities of the reform is to establish sustainable funding, i.e. introduce the economic price of water. The Serbian water sector is only at the beginning of the reforms. The central question of the paper is volume of investments and investment dynamics into water resources in Serbia, for the next twenty years. The price of water is one of the main determinants of investment growth. Given the increasing number of important factors for the price of water, this paper presents three long-term scenarios of growth of the economic price of water.