THE NATIONAL Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank, has lowered its forecast for Slovakia’s economic growth in 2012. Last December the bank predicted GDP would rise by 2.3 percent this year but now forecasts growth of only 2.1 percent, the SITA newswire reported.
The governor of the NBS, Jozef Makúch, told a press conference on March 27 that the bank’s prediction was prepared when uncertainty on financial markets was no longer growing but that foreign demand was gradually falling. He added that the mid-term prognosis was positively influenced by good Slovak economic growth in the last quarter of 2011 and negatively influenced by labour market conditions.
Makúch added that the bank’s new prediction still has several risk factors such as the need for continued fiscal consolidation by the government that has an unclear economic impact and by potential tightening of lending conditions in Europe that could impact on foreign demand and investments in Slovakia, SITA wrote.
The NBS forecasts that the Slovak economy will grow by 3.1 percent in 2013 and by 4.2 percent in 2014.
