IMF: GDP Forecasts for Central, Eastern Europe "Deteriorating"

Kristalina Georgieva, Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that over the past five years, the Fund's experts have lowered their forecasts for the dynamics of GDP for some Central and Eastern European countries, according to Report News Agency.

In a speech she intends to deliver at a conference in Dubrovnik on the economic situation in this region, Georgieva adds: “As for growth, the aforementioned region is facing deep economic difficulties. We compared our current forecasts with those for this region before the pandemic, excluding Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. And this is what we found: Real GDP is expected to be 3.5% lower in 2024 than we expected at the beginning of 2020. It's like taking $50 billion out of people's pockets over these five years.”

Among the main challenges in the region, Georgieva identified "weak recovery, persistent inflation, and high uncertainty and uncertainty."

In addition, she noted, the problems in the region are related to energy security, economic fragmentation, and geopolitical tensions.

According to the IMF classification, the countries of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe include: Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, unrecognized Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine, Croatia, Montenegro, the Czech Republic and Estonia.