Slovak Sees 3.6% Growth in Q1

The Slovak economy recorded a year-on-year growth of 3.6% in the first quarter of 2018, local media reported on Sunday, Xinhua reproted. The growth rate was 0.6 percentage point higher than that in the first quarter of 2017. Lubomir Korsnak, UniCredit analyst for Czech Republic and Slovakia, said the Slovak economy was driven at the beginning of this year by domestic demand—both consumption and investments. “The steadily strong growth in household consumption has already been indicated by monthly retail sales figures, and the published GDP figures have only confirmed our expectations,” said Korsnak. The year 2018 should be also characterized by a restart in the Slovak automotive industry, which will benefit from launches in the production of new model ranges and expanding production capacities, including the opening of a new car production plant in the country. “On the other hand, growth in external demand should be gradually slowing down. Several indicators suggest that the European, especially the German economy, probably reached its cyclical peak at the turn of the year, and growth is expected to slowly decelerate in the coming period,” Korsnak said.