World Economic outlook - Bulgaria economic GDP Growth Forecast 2012 : UniCredit Cuts Bulgaria 2012 GDP Growth Forecast to 1.5% : UniCredit SpA, Italy’s biggest bank, cut Bulgaria’s growth forecast for this and next year on concern the euro area crisis will cut investment and demand for the country’s exports in the European Union.
Bulgaria’s gross domestic product will probably expand 1.5 percent in 2012, down from a previous forecast of 2.6 percent, UniCredit said in an e-mailed statement today. The economy will expand 2 percent this year, compared with a March 31 estimate of 2.6 percent, the bank said.
“The challenges facing Bulgaria’s economic recovery include contraction of external demand combined with a gradual decrease of corporate-sector debt and a slow recovery in the real estate and labor markets,” UniCredit said. A drop in Bulgaria’s third-quarter foreign investments to 159 million euros ($197 million) is another reason for the forecast growth cut, the bank said.
Bulgaria ships 60 percent of its exports to the EU. The bloc’s poorest country in terms of economic output per capita withstood the global recession in 2009 without an international bailout. Its economic growth slowed to 1.6 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, the weakest in five quarters.
“Bulgaria will avoid a second recession because the public-sector balance and the household sector remain strong,” UniCredit said.
The International Monetary Fund cut its GDP forecasts for Bulgaria on Dec. 9 to 1.9 percent this year and 1.3 percent in 2012.
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