18:26 10 September 2023
Citigroup significantly lowers growth forecast for the Eurozone
The Eurozone is expected to grow at a slower pace than previously anticipated, according to economists at Citigroup. They predict that there will be a slight decline in GDP in the next three quarters, as reported by Reuters.
Experts from the American bank currently forecast that Eurozone growth for this year will reach only 0.4 percent. In contrast, the earlier forecast had assumed a value twice as high, at 0.8 percent. Importantly, they expect the economy to contract by 0.1 percent in 2024, whereas earlier expectations were for growth of 0.8 percent.
Economists justify such a strong correction with the belief in "overly strong" factors that hinder the growth of the Eurozone economy. Among these, they consider the most important to be the energy transition and labor shortages, the weakness of the Chinese economy, fiscal reversal, and tightening of monetary policy, which are "crippling" real household income growth.
