August 16 (SeeNews) - Bosnia's central bank governor Senad Softic expects the country's gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by a real 3.4% this year, the central bank said.
“The autumn round of macroeconomic projections, based on the quarterly figures from the middle of 2021 and the available monthly data for the third quarter, we plan to announce in November,” the central bank quoted Softic as saying in an interview with local daily Vecernji List last week.
“However, the existing data so far do not suggest that the projections for 2021 made in May could change significantly," he added.
The central bank head's projection is lower than the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's forecast for a 3.5% rise in GDP announced in June, and higher compared to the World Bank's projection for 2.8% economic growth in 2021, made also in June.
Bosnia's GDP increased by a real 1.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021, after contracting by an annual 3.8% in the preceding quarter, the country's statistical office said last month, quoting non-seasonally adjusted figures. On a quarterly comparison basis, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 4.6% in the January-March period, after it grew by 3% in the three months through December.
Bosnia and Herzegovina's GDP contracted by 4.3% year-on-year in 2020.