Vienna Institute for International Economic Research : Moldova's GDP may drop by 7%.
Moldova will enter the 4 countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, in which in 2020 there will be the strongest economic recession after the crisis due to the pandemic, and our country's GDP may drop by 7%. Such a forecast was made by experts of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Research, having worsened the forecast of economic development for this year for Moldova and many other countries of the named group. In particular, the experts of the institute in a brief review of their new, autumn economic forecast for the countries of the region predict that in 2020 the decline in Moldova's GDP will be 7%, and a higher economic decline among the countries of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe is expected only in Croatia - 9.4%, Montenegro - 9%, Slovakia - 7.3%. In Romania this year GDP is forecasted to decline by 5.5%, in Ukraine - 5%, in Russia - 5%, in Belarus - 2.5%, etc. At the same time, experts from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Research expect the Moldovan economy to recover in the next 2 years and predict that the GDP growth of our country in 2021 and 2022 will amount to 4% in both cases. In Romania, according to forecasts, GDP growth next year will amount to 3.7%, in Ukraine - 2%, in Russia - 2.5%. According to the Vienna Institute for International Economic Research, the strongest economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis among the countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) will be demonstrated by Croatia and Montenegro, where GDP growth in 2021 is expected by 5% in both cases. Analysts of the named institution also believe that inflation in Moldova in 2020 will amount to 4.3%, in 2021 - 4.5%, and in 2022 - 5%. The unemployment rate in Moldova is projected to rise from 5.1% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2020 and to 6.5% in 2021, and then decline slightly to 6% in 2022. Prime Minister Ion Chicu noted that the decline in Moldova's GDP this year could be 6.3-6.6% and will be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic and severe drought, which greatly affected the economy this year. According to him, data on the dynamics of GDP for the third quarter of 2020 will be presented by the National Bureau of Statistics on December 15, and then it will be possible to make a more accurate forecast of the decline in GDP this year. In the first quarter of 2020, the gross domestic product of Moldova increased by 0.9%, compared to the same period in 2019, and in the second quarter of this year - decreased by 14% against the backdrop of various restrictive and prohibitive measures for economic agents due to COVID-19. The government of Moldova announced earlier that by the end of 2020, the country's GDP is expected to decline by 4.5%. The IMF has the same updated forecast. The World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development previously worsened the forecast for the economy of Moldova for 2020. The World Bank raised the forecast for the decline in the country's GDP this year from 3.1% to 5.2%, the EBRD - from 4% to 5.5%. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of 2020, Moldova's GDP amounted to 88 billion 314 million lei at current market prices, having decreased in real terms by 7.2% compared to the first half of 2019.// 17.11.2020 — InfoMarket.
