Slovakia’s GDP is estimated to rise by 2.4 percent in 2014, which amounts to growth of 0.1 percentage points higher than the Slovak central bank's (NBS) January prognosis, announced the Slovak National Bank governor Jozef Makuch at a press conference in Bratislava on Tuesday.
GDP growth is expected to accelerate to 3.3 percent in 2015 and to 3.5 percent in 2016, in accordance with the original January prognosis. The increased estimate for this year is mostly due to positive developments on the labour market materialising sooner than expected. “Therefore, higher growth in employment with a positive effect on the development of unemployment is expected this year. In the future, the continuing growth in economic activities is likely to generate the creation of new jobs, in response to which the unemployment rate at the far end of the prognosis is estimated to drop to 12 percent”, said Makuch.
