Skopje, 13 October 2020
There are no significant changes in the expectations of economic analysts. They continue to expect moderate, low and stable inflation. In terms of economic growth, the analysts expect gradual overcoming of the crisis and recovery of the economy in the next two years. The conclusions of this Survey represent the views of the respondents- economic analysts.
The National Bank has published the results of the latest Survey on inflation expectations and expectations on the movement of the real GDP, conducted this year in September by interviewing economic analysts from the country.
The results of the Survey do not indicate significant changes in expectations of surveyed economic analysts for the average inflation rate. More specifically, the average expectations for 2020, 2021 and 2022 are almost unchanged compared to the previous survey conducted in June and point to an average rate of 0.6% in 2020, while for 2021 and 2022 they still point to an average inflation of 1.3% and 1.6%, respectively. Hence, the assessments of the surveyed economic analysts point to expectations for low and stable inflation, both by the end of the year and in the upcoming two-year period, with a gradual rise in prices.
In the next two years, the respondents expect a gradual overcoming of the crisis and economic recovery. In terms of the economic activity, compared to the previous survey, the surveyed analysts expected a deeper decline of the domestic economy this year of 4.3%, but also slightly higher economic growth in 2021 and 2022 of 2.7% and 3.4%, respectively. Similar to the previous surveys, such expectations are related to: the uncertainty of the global crisis from the COVID-19 virus and possibility of introducing new restrictive measures to deal with it, uncertain foreign demand and its impact on the domestic economy, declining domestic demand, as well as the restraint of foreign and domestic investors and lower lending activity. On the other hand, the analysts expect that the undertaken monetary and fiscal measures, progress in Euro-Atlantic integrations and optimism for finding a vaccine that would be effective in tackling the coronavirus, as well as accelerated implementation of capital projects, will have a positive impact on the economy in the coming period and contribute to a post-crisis acceleration of its growth.
The conclusions of this Survey, which is conducted by the National Bank four times a year, present the views of the respondents –economic analysts.