Economic advisor to the Serbian prime minister Jurij Bajec said Monday in Novi Pazar that unemployment will start dropping this year as a result of the projected economic growth.

At the same time, Bajec assessed that the economic crisis which considerably weakened the country's real sector will lead to a serious change in its economic structure.

Taking part in the first national debate entitled "Economic development and employment - post-crisis opportunities and challenges," Bajec stressed that agriculture and industrial production would be at the forefront of the development in the real sector, and not the service sector which currently accounts for 65 percent of the real sector.

Participants of the debate pointed out that poverty in Serbia rose from seven percent in 2009 to 9.2 percent at the end of 2010.

They estimated Serbia would record a GDP growth between 3.5 and four percent this year and come out of the crisis in 2012.

Members of the government team for social inclusion and combating poverty said that unemployment went up from 14 percent in 2008 to around 20 percent late last year.

The national debate on economic development and employment in Novi Pazar is the first in a series of debates to be held in towns across Serbia.