March 6 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's central bank has revised its forecast for the country's real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2019 to 3.6%, down 0.4 percentage points compared to the June 2018 forecast, it said.
The Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) has also lowered its projection for economic growth in 2020 by 0.2 percentage points to 3.8%, it said in its Q4 2018 economic review published on Tuesday.
"Current external assumptions indicate weaker external demand vis-à-vis the previous projection, which is reflected in lower export growth rates in the 2019 and 2020 projection," the BNB said.
Another major contributor was the downward revision in private consumption growth in 2019 and 2020, due to the worsening consumer sentiment in the last months of 2018 and projected slower growth in disposable income.
Bulgaria's harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) is projected to rise by 2.6% at the end of 2019, an upward revision of 0.4 percentage points compared to the June 2018 forecast. The BNB cut its HICP growth forecast for end-2020 by 0.3 percentage points to 2.1%.
"Changed assumptions about international oil and food prices in euro over the projection horizon are the main reason for our upward revision of expected overall inflation in 2019 and a downward revision in 2020," the BNB said.
Details follow:
Percentage change, y/y |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
GDP at constant prices |
3.2 |
3.6 |
3.8 |
Private consumption |
7.6 |
4.0 |
3.9 |
Government consumption |
3.8 |
3.6 |
3.0 |
Gross fixed capital formation |
6.7 |
6.9 |
5.0 |
Exports |
-1.6 |
3.8 |
4.1 |
Imports |
4.6 |
5.1 |
4.3 |
HICP (end of period) |
2.3 |
2.6 |
2.1 |