Next week’s expected economic outlook for the quarter from the European Commission (EC) will be more optimistic than the last one, said EC Executive Vice-President Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis in an interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma on Monday, the 30th of January.
According to him, compared to last autumn’s economic outlook, next week’s document will paint a slightly better picture. According to EC’s economists, inflation in the European Union (EU) had reached its peak at the end of 2022. This means it will start going down soon,
energy resources will become cheaper than previously expected,
and labour force indexes will remain stable.
«With that we can expect the economy to develop slightly better than previously expected. While in autumn the economic outlook was 0.3% in the EU for this year, now we can safely say that this index [as listed in winter’s economic outlook] will be corrected up slightly,» said Dombrovskis.
He affirmed that in the winter report
Latvia’s economic outlook may be corrected in the positive direction and may reach zero value.
Accurate data will become available next week.
Nevertheless, there are still risks tied to the Russian-Ukrainian war, such as high uncertainty and instability, as well as security of energy supplies, said Dombrovskis, adding that Europe will need to look for alternative gas suppliers in a situation when demand is up in China, as the country moves to lower Covid-19 restrictions.
Generally both the EC and Latvia will need to ensure a coordinated macroeconomic policy, so that fiscal and monetary policy work in the same direction, Dombrovskis concluded.
Also read: BNN ANALYSES | 22.5% of Latvia’s population at risk of poverty but people’s servants still get a raise