Country Economic Forecasts > Slovenia

Quarterly GDP growth picked up in Q4, rising to 0.6% on the back of stronger-than-expected fixed investment growth. But despite the solid end to 2015, we still forecast GDP growth will slow to 1.9% this year from 2.6% in 2015. This will be primarily due to public investment, which we expect to fall as the investment cycle driven by funding under the EU 2007-13 programme comes to an end. However, consumer demand should pick up further in 2016. Lack of inflationary pressures, falling unemployment and a modest recovery in the housing market will all contribute to a solid 2.1% rise in private consumption this year. But strengthening demand will lead to an increase in import growth, so although we expect exports to rise by 4.3% in 2016 and 4.7% in 2017, the contribution of net exports to growth will start to fall. Improving domestic demand and solid export growth should lead to 2.5% GDP growth in 2017 and about 3% a year in 2018-19.