IMF, gloomiest predictions
21/06/2011 15:15
Opposition demonstrators clash with the police in the protest in front of Tirana municipality, foreign embassies condemn acts of violence 19/04 16:00
International Monetary Fund has given a lower evaluation for Albania’s
economic growth, reducing it with 0.7 percentage points less than the
evaluation made in the beginning of the year. Top Channel has learned
that IMF experts, who arrived in Tirana for reviewing the budget,
estimate that the Albanian economy will have only a 2.7% growth this
year in real terms, different to the beginning of the year, when IMF had
predicted a growth of 3.4%.
The weak economic performance was signalized in this period by some indirect indicators, such as the budget revenues and consume. The budget revenues are at the same level of one year ago, which doesn’t justify the price increase, while consume has been reduced.
Even the government has admitted that the economic growth for this year will be lower than predicted. In the budget that the government will send to the Parliament for a review, they have lowered the national production growth from 5.5 to 5%. But yet, this version is twice more optimist than that of the Monetary Fund.
Beyond the difference between government’s and IMF’s evaluations, the fact is that the economic growth slowdown is creating problems in the current state of our economy. Not only for slowing down the growth of family incomes, but also for the delicate indicator of the public debt, which worsens when economic growth is low. Government’s calculations for the budget have changed a lot since the beginning of this year, at the point that IMF office estimates that the country will return to the primary deficit of 1.2% of the GDP.
Top Channel
