MAT: Weaker results reduce growth estimates
Growth rate of Serbia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 of 4.4 percent might be adjusted to 4.2 or 4.3 percent, as lower results than estimated growth of industrial production, retail trade and foreign exchange were realized.
This is the opinion of the Editor of Macroeconomic Analyses and Trends magazine (MAT) Ivan Nikolic, who pointed out that estimate of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS) was that growth of industrial production in 2018 would be two percent and it was 1.3 percent.
„Manufacturing industry had distinctively downward trend in the fourth quarter last year, thus November estimate was that annual growth would be around three percent, and in the final result it was reduced to 1.9 percent“, Nikolic said.
He added that growth in the value of export, according to SORS, was estimated at nine percent in the entire 2018, and it was realized by 8.1 percent. According to him, one of the causes of Serbia’s lower export is almost suspended export of goods to Kosovo due to taxes of 100 percent.
Nikolic said that the European Statistical Office Eurostat estimated that Germany’s year-on-year economic growth decreased in the last trimester as well, from 2.4 percent in the first to 1.2 in the last quarter, and Italy is formally in recession, those being the two countries in which Serbia exports the most.
Izvor: N1, Beta
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