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| IMF |
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the Albanian economy will grow by 3.7% in 2019, slowing down significantly compared with 2018, when the growth reached up to 4.2%.
The new IMF statistics are published in today's "Global Economic Statement" report. The news is not good either from the global economy and especially from the European one, from which we depend heavily, as the IMF expects the growth to be lower for 70% of the globe. Italy, where goes nearly the half of Albanian exports is expected to grow by only 0.1% in 2019, according to the IMF, by lowering the expectations by 0.5 percentage points compared to the January report.For Albania, compared to the October report, the IMF has boosted its economy rating in 2018, from 4 to 4.2%, while keeping unchanged the 2019 expectation.
Compared to other countries in the region, Kosovo is expected to have the biggest increase in 2019, by 4.2%, followed by Albania with 3.7%, Serbia with 3.5%, Bosnia with 3.1%, North Macedonia with 3 % and Montenegro by 2.8%.
For Turkey, the IMF predicts a negative growth of -2.5%, while from Eastern European countries, Poland is expected to have the best performance with 3.8%.
In the medium term, the IMF is not very optimistic about the economic expansion of the countries in the region. The Albanian economy is not expected to grow more than 4% by 2024, along with that of Kosovo, while for other countries, the figure will range between 2.9 and 3.8%.