MADRID (Reuters) – The Bank of Spain revised upward its forecast of GDP for 2016, due to the strong domestic demand in private, but retained the estimate that the Spanish economy will slow in 2017 and 2018.
In the quarterly filed Thursday, the BdE increased by four-tenths of its forecast of GDP to 3.2 percent this year, and maintained its forecast of an increase of 2.3 per cent in 2017 and to 2.1 in 2018.
For the third quarter of this year, the Bank of Spain is forecasting growth of 0.7 per cent, a tenth less than the previous two quarters.
Despite the strong growth, the bank said that the risks are still geared to the poor, among other things, the interim the situation of Spanish politics and the uncertainty over future economic policy.
“Any delay in the timetable for correction of the budgetary imbalance and the approval of structural reforms increases the vulnerability of the economy in the face of potential exogenous shocks,” said the Bank of Spain.
The BdE added that no new budget measures, Spain will not meet this year on its goal of fiscal consolidation, committed to Brussels (4.6 per cent of GDP).
According to the bank, in the absence of new measures, Spain would close by 2016 with a deficit of 4.9 percent in 2016 and 3.6 percent in 2017, compared to the 2.8 percent that has been set with the EU.
Among the external risks, the BdE mentions the instability of the emerging economies, geopolitical conflicts and the consequences of the exit of Uk from the EU.
In regards to the evolution of employment, the BdE is expected to continue the path downtrend of the unemployment rate to lower levels to 17 per cent by the end of 2018.
For its part, the bank predicts still a context of negative prices in 2016 (0.3 per cent) and the return to positive territory in 2017 and 2018 (+1.5 and +1.6 percent, respectively) supported in the recovery of oil prices.
© Thomson Reuters 2016 All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment