Page 28 - SE Outlook Regions 2024

“During the forecast horizon, domestic demand, in particular private consumption, is projected to strengthen and to become the main driver of growth, benefiting from strong wage growth, decelerating inflation and solid employment increases. However, the frequent political stalemates are expected to persist, delaying structural reforms and impeding the business environment,” the EC noted.
The World Bank’s projection for 2024 is more optimistic at 2.8%, with the global lender expecting it to further accelerate in 2025 to 3.4%.
On the other hand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projects the 2023 economic growth at 2%, has the most optimistic forecast for 2024, setting the growth at 3%. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has the same expectations for the 2024 economic growth.
The Bosnian Directorate for Economic Planning (DEP) forecasts that Bosnia’s economy will grow by 2.7% in 2024, 3% in 2025 and 3.3% in 2026, mainly backed by increasing domestic demand.
2.2.2 Industrial production
Bosnia’s industry was on a downward path for most of 2023, continuing the worsening performance from 2022 due to the global economic crisis caused by the Russian war in Ukraine.
Over the first ten months of 2023, industrial production decreased by 2.9% and the last two months of the year are not expected to improve that trend. The performance was negatively affected by the falling mining and quarrying sector (down 6.4% through October) and the key manufacturing sector (down 3.7% in January-October).
The electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply was the sole to post growth in 2023, up by 1.7% y/y in January-October.
Industrial sales did not perform positively in 2023 either. For the first ten months of the year they decreased by 7.8% and end-year results are
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