BELGRADE, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) predicts that the country will achieve economic growth of 3.5 percent with inflation around 3 percent in 2018 and 2019, governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic said at a press conference on Thursday, presenting the latest May inflation report.

Tabakovic said "economic developments in the past months of 2018 have been favorable and that the positive trends are expected to continue for the rest of the year."

She said while GDP growth accelerated in the first quarter of 2018 to 4.5 percent, year-on-year inflation decelerated significantly, to 2 percent, which is within the targeted inflation.

NBS foresees Serbia keeping low inflation in the next two years at around 3 percent, and accelerate further the growth of its GDP in 2018 and 2019 to 3.5 percent and at around 4 percent in the medium run.

"We estimate that the net inflow of foreign direct investment for the entire year will be around 2.6 billion euros (3.06 billion U.S. dollars)," she said, adding that the share of foreign direct investments in the GDP will revolve around 22 percent.