“With a substantially better than expected figure for the third quarter, the economic growth for 2011 as a whole should be much above our expectations of 1.5% even in case of a bad figure for the last quarter. Real gross domestic product already grew by 2.7% year-on-year in the first three quarters. Accordingly, we think the GDP would grow by 2.5% in 2011,” Raiffeisen said in a report.
However, the Austrian group said the 2012 economic growth could come below its expectations of 1.8%, due to possible negative contribution from agriculture and declining exports as the economic activity in international markets is set to slow down.
“Large contribution from agriculture to GDP growth in 2011 (possible up to 1%) implies risks for a negative contribution in 2012 due to the base effect. Moreover, there are clear signals of a slowdown of economic activity on the external markets which should result in a lower contribution to GDP from net exports in 2012, but also in a sluggish recovery of consumption and investments,” Raiffeisen said.