Page 7 - BNE_magazine_11_2019

bne November 2019 The Month That Was I 7
Polish core inflation came in at 2.4% y/y in September, the National Bank of Poland (NBP) said. The growth rate is 0.2pp higher than the y/y reading recorded in August. The elevated core inflation underpins CPI although headline price growth eased 0.3pp
to 2.6% y/y in September.
Czech industrial production recorded a drop to 3.8% year-on- year in August after a growth of
5.6% in July, mostly due to lower production of computers and electronic devices and metal processing,
above the analysts' expectations.
decade high of 14.7% in the January and February period. Experts say that a more fairly measured Turkish jobless rate would be found to be substantially higher.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) improved its projection for Bulgaria’s economic growth to 3.7% in 2019 in the October edition of its World Economic Outlook (WEO). In April, it forecast that the economy would expand by 3.3% this year. The IMF projected that Bulgaria’s real GDP will slow its growth to 3.2% in 2020 and will slow down further to 2.8% in 2024.
Croatia’s GDP is expected to expand 3% this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its latest World Economic Outlook report, issued on October 15, improving its previous forecast for 2.6% of growth made in April. Croatia emerged from a six-year recession in 2015 and has posted GDP growth since the last quarter of 2014. Croatia's economy expanded by 2.6% y/y last year.
Slovenia’s central bank said on October 9 it will impose tighter measures to restrict the “excessive growth” of retail lending, which now exceeds 10%, starting from November. The Bank of Slovenia warned that there are huge deviations from the recommendations mainly in two areas, the ratio between the debt costs to the borrower's income and the average maturity of consumer loans, which in some cases exceeds 12 years.
Eurasia
Armenia can anticipate economic growth of 6.0% in 2019, an improvement on last year’s 5.2%, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook. Its forecast for Armenian GDP growth in 2020 is 4.8%. Since spring 2018, Armenia has been ruled by a post-revolution administration that has promised crackdowns on cronyism, corruption and monopolies.
Mongolia’s real GDP growth is projected to slightly accelerate to 6.9% in 2019 supported by strong domestic demand, sustained FDI flows, and robust commodity exports, the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update said. The figure
was revised downward from an earlier projection in the summer of 7.2% growth. “The latest downward revision can be explained by a recent fall in copper prices and expected lower
gold content of Oyu Tolgoi (OT)’s copper production,” the update said.
Southeast Europe
Turkey’s current account surplus
on an annual basis hit a record in August as the country’s hard-pressed consumers continued to limit orders for imports. The current account balance saw a surplus of $2.6bn in the month, taking the annualised surplus to $5.1bn. That’s the biggest ever figure recorded in the data series going back to 1999, according to Turkey’s central bank, which released the figures on October 11. The median of 10 estimates in
a Bloomberg survey was for a monthly surplus of $2.85bn in August.
Turkey's unemployment rate grew
by 3.1 pp year on year to 13.9% in
the June-August period, with the seasonally adjusted rate hitting its highest level on record, according to the latest official data. The summer 2018 lira crisis caused a recession that pushed official Turkish unemployment to a near-
Uzbekistan’s GDP growth is expected to remain at around 5.6% in 2019 and 2020 before rising to 6% in
2021 as market reforms “open new sources of export-led growth, address production bottlenecks, and ease regulatory constraints”, according to the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Economic Update for autumn 2019, released on October 9.
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