July 3 (SeeNews) - UniCredit Bulbank, part of Italy's UniCredit Group, said it has lowered its forecast for Bulgaria's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2018 to 4.0%, from 4.4% predicted in March.
Weaker-than-expected economic activity in the first four months of the year coupled with higher crude oil price forecasts are the reason for the slight decrease of the originally projected rate of growth, UniCredit Bulbank said in a quarterly economic report.
Bulgaria's economic expansion will be backed by income growth, loan-financed rise in household consumption, recovery of the housing construction sector, along with higher absorption of financial resources from EU funds.
These factors are expected to contribute to a broadly based and sustained growth that will only slow down insignificantly to 3.9% in 2019, the bank said.
Details follow:
|
2017 |
2018f |
2019f |
GDP growth |
3.6 |
4.0 |
3.9 |
Private consumption |
4.8 |
4.3 |
4.2 |
Gross capital formation |
3.8 |
8.2 |
7.6 |
End-year inflation |
2.8 |
2.8 |
2.9 |
Unemployment rate |
6.2 |
5.4 |
5.0 |
Source: Unicredit Bulbank
UniCredit Bulbank AD is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here