World Bank cuts Bulgaria’s economic growth forecast
The World Bank downgraded its estimates for global economic growth in 2013 and 2014, but said that the global economy appeared to transitioning to a period of more stable, if slightly slower, growth.
In its June 2013 edition of the Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank forecast that the global economy would growth by 2.2 per cent this year (compared to 2.4 per cent in the January edition of the report) and three per cent in 2014 (compared to the 3.1 per cent forecast in the January report).
Bulgaria’s economy was forecast to grow by 1.2 per cent in 2013 and 2.1 per cent in 2014; in the January report, the financial institution forecast 1.8 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively.
The World Bank’s growth forecast figure falls above the latest European Commission estimates. In its spring forecast for the EU economy, published last month, the Commission reduced its projection for Bulgarian economic growth this year from 1.4 per cent to 0.9 per cent. In 2014, the EC projected Bulgaria’s economy growing by 1.7 per cent.
Bulgaria’s own economic growth target for 2013, set in the Convergence Programme submitted to the European Commission in April, was one per cent, with growth expected to pick up and reach 1.8 per cent in 2014.
(Photo: svilen001/sxc.hu)
