TALLINN - The Bank of Estonia released a new batch of forecasts last week, predicting that this year's economic growth rate would amount to 8.1 percent and 7.6 percent in 2007. The bank's previous forecasts were lowered by 1.4 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively. In the bank's opinion, consumer prices will increase 3.6 percent this year and 3.0 percent next year. These growth forecasts of the central bank are slightly lower than those by the Finance Ministry.
According to the bank, export and import will both grow by about 15 percent this year. Next year, the growth in export will be be slightly above 14 percent, while imports will grow by less than 14 percent, according to the forecast.
The ratio of the current account deficit to the gross domestic product will fall to 9.6 percent this year and 9.4 percent next year, according to the Bank of Estonia forecast.
The expected unemployment figure will be 7.0 percent this year and 6.4 percent next year. The central bank has lowered both the indicators by 1.8 percentage points compared with its earlier forecast.
According to the central bank's forecast the average wages will rise by 8.3 percent this year and by 7.1 percent next year.