April 13 (SeeNews) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised up its 2016 economic growth forecast for Macedonia to 3.6% in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) report from 3.2% projected in the previous WEO edition, released in October.
Next year, the country's economy is expected to expand at the same rate of 3.6%, the WEO, published late on Tuesday, showed.
Macedonia's average annual inflation is expected to accelerate to 0.5% this year and further to 1.5% in 2017, following a deflation of 0.2% in 2015.
IMF also expects the country's current account deficit to widen to 2.6% of GDP by the end of 2017 from a projected 1.7% this year.
The economic growth of countries from the IMF subcategory Emerging and Developing Europe which includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro, is projected to remain broadly stable at 3.5% in 2016 and 3.3% in 2017.
"Activity in the region has benefited from lower oil prices and the gradual recovery in the euro area, but elevated corporate debt is hindering private investment," the IMF commented.
The countries in this subcategory are expected to post an average inflation of 4.8% in 2017 and 4.1% in 2016, and current account gap of 2.1% of GDP this year and 2.6% of GDP in 2017.
Last week, the World Bank revised up its 2016 economic growth forecast for Macedonia to 3.7% from 3.4%, and predicted an expansion of 4.0% in both 2017 and 2018.