PODGORICA (Montenegro), December 20 (SeeNews) – The Montenegrin government expects economic growth of a real 7.0% next year and consumer price inflation of up to 4.0%, a government official said on Thursday.
The government’s 2008 macroeconomic targets include a rise in the gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.529 billion euro, the Secretary of the government’s Secretariat for Development, Dusan Simonovic, told a news conference after the weekly government session.
“We see the 2008 budget surplus at 0.26% of GDP,” he added, “and aim for a progressive cutting of the current account deficit to 19.97% of GDP, which will fall under 20% for the first time.”
The government’s macroeconomic framework also forecasts foreign direct investments (FDI) of 793.79 million euro next year, Simonovic said.
Last month, Finance Minister Igor Luksic said Montenegro's government expects the country's economy to grow by a real 6.2% in each of the next three years on average, up from 6% projected for this year.
“We expect 2.53 billion euro ($3.7 billion) GDP for the next year, 2.77 billion euro for 2009 and in 2010 for the GDP to reach some 3.0 billion euro,” Luksic said. Inflation was expected at an average 3.5% in each of 2008, 2009, 2010.
The Economic Development Ministry said last month Montenegro's GDP for the first nine months of 2007 rose by 7.1% on the year, well above the previously projected growth of 6.0% for the country of 620,000 people.
Montenegro reported a 123.7 million euro government budget surplus for the first nine months of 2007. It has previously forecast a budget surplus of 10.73 million euro for the current year, equivalent to 0.54% of the projected gross domestic product.
FDI in Montenegro in the nine months through September rose by 140% year-on-year to 708 million euro. The Adriatic country attracted 644.3 million euro in 2006.