April 9 (SeeNews) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered Moldova's 2019 economic growth forecast to 3.5% from 3.8% predicted in October, according to the April edition of the global lender's World Economic Outlook (WEO) report released on Tuesday.
Moldova's 2020 economic growth is forecast at 3.8%, the IMF said. In 2018, Moldova's economy grew by an estimated 4%, according to the report.
Moldova's inflation is seen at 3.3% in 2019 and at 5.5% in 2020, the IMF said. The country's annual consumer price inflation accelerated to 2.4% in February, from 2.2% in the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics said earlier.
Moldova’s central bank, BNM, lowered its 2019 inflation projection by 0.5 percentage points to 4.9% in February. BNM targets inflation of 5.0% plus or minus 1.5 pp.
The IMF expects Moldova's current account deficit to decrease to 7.7% of GDP in 2019 from an estimated 9.9% of GDP in 2018. The current account deficit increased 111% to $1.18 billion (1.05 billion euro) last year, according to BNM.
Moldova's unemployment is seen at 4% both this year and next, compared to 4.1% estimated for 2018, the IMF said. Moldova's unemployment rate fell to 3.0% in 2018 from 4.1% a year earlier, the country's statistical office has said, citing provisional data.
The country's 2019 budget targets economic growth of 4% and budget deficit equivalent to 2.7% of the projected GDP.
($=0.887 euro)