World Bank Predicts Bulgaria's Economic Slowdown Will Continue in Next Three Years

The growth of the Bulgarian economy will continue to slow down in the next three years and by 2021 it will have lost more than a quarter of the rate at which it grew in 2016. None of the five years until 2021 saw or will see a reversal of the downward trend, Dnevnik.bg says in its own summary of predictions about Bulgaria contained in a World Bank report which was released on January 8.

The report, entitled "January 2019 Global Economic Prospects: Darkening Skies," says that global growth is expected to slow to 2.9 per cent in 2019. International trade and investment are moderating, trade tensions remain elevated, and financing conditions are tightening, the World Bank notes. "At the beginning of 2018 the global economy was firing on all cylinders, but it lost speed during the year and the ride could get even bumpier in the year ahead," the Bank's Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva said in an official press release.

In the case of Bulgaria, the Bank has revised down all figures from its June 2018 forecast by between 0.5 and 0.6 percentage points. Half a year later, the Bank estimates that in 2018 the Bulgarian economy grew by 3.3 per cent, not 3.8 per cent. This means that in six months the national economy lost more than one-eighth of its growth rate, Dnevnik.bg notes in its presentation of the report.

Expectations for this year and for the next two years have also been lowered. Bulgaria's economic slowdown is expected to continue to a level of 3.1 per cent this year, 3.0 per cent in 2020 and 2.8 per cent in 2021. Back in 2016, the national economy grew by 3.9 per cent, according to World Bank data.

Among the main reasons, the Bank points to slowing growth in the Euro Area, which is Bulgaria's main trade partner, the weakening of growth-conducive effects in the financial sector, and labour shortages.

Source: BTA