Brussels, 07 February (STA) - Slovenia's economy expanded by 4.9% last year, shows the latest economic forecast by the European Commission. The figure is a 0.2-point improvement over the autumn forecast. There was the same upward tweak in the outlook for 2018 and 2019, with the country's GDP expected to expand by 4.2% and 3.5%, respectively.
Last autumn, the Commission said it expected the Slovenian economy to expand by 4.7% in 2017, which was an upgrade of 1.4 percentage points from the spring forecast.
For this year, it forecast 4% GDP growth, up 0.9 points from the previous estimate, and next year 3.3% growth was expected.
Released on Wednesday, the new outlook puts Slovenia's growth high above that of the eurozone and the EU. GDP of the area with the common currency is projected to grow by 2.3% this year and by 2% in 2019.
Moreover, the outlook is also better than the government macro-economic think-tank IMAD assessed in September. Under IMAD's projections, Slovenia's economy was to expand by 4.4% last year, by 3.9% this year and by 3.2% in 2019.
The Commission also revealed its latest inflation estimates for Slovenia. Inflation ran at 1.6% last year, and is estimated to amount to 1.8% this year and to 2% next year, which is above EU average.
Brussels announced it would no longer issue three comprehensive forecasts a year; instead it will publish two comprehensive - in the spring and autumn - and two interim - in the winter and summer - forecasts. The latter will no longer provide public financial data, but only GDP and inflation figures.