The Statistics Office on March 4 stated that it views the development of Slovakia's economy in 2007 as positive, and hasn't observed any signs of the national economy becoming overheated, the TASR newswire wrote.
"The positive development in the Slovak economy in 2007 was characterised by high year-on-year GDP growth, labour productivity growth, higher salaries in real terms, improving parameters in foreign trade, employment growth and at the same time reduced unemployment," stats office head Ľubica Benkovičová said at a news conference.
The country's GDP for the year reached Sk1.851 trillion (€57.13 billion) according to an adjusted estimate. Benkovičová added that growth in 2007 accelerated from 8.3 percent in the first quarter to 14.3 percent in the final quarter. Slovakia's surprisingly rapid GDP growth in the final quarter was caused mainly by a higher-than-expected increase in excise taxes on cigarettes as of January, which prompted people to stock up in advance. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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