OREANDA-NEWS. The Central Bank of Ireland has published the second Quarterly Bulletin for 2016. The Bulletin examines recent trends in the domestic and international economies, as well as well as presenting the Central Bank’s forecasts for the Irish economy and its views on domestic macroeconomic policy issues.

The Bulletin reports:

  • GDP growth of 5.1 per cent is forecast for 2016, a marginal upward revision of 0.3 per cent from the previous projection.  The forecast for GDP growth in 2017 is 4.2 per cent, down 0.2 per cent from the previous forecast.
  • The strengthening of economic growth over the past year has been underpinned by relatively strong and broad-based growth in employment.
  • The improvement in the labour market, which has probably been the most important factor in driving the recovery in recent years, has been particularly marked, with average annual employment growth of over 2 per cent since 2012.
  • The main impetus to growth in 2016 and 2017 is projected to come from the continued strength of demand within the economy in the form of solid growth in consumer spending and investment.

Chief Economist, Gabriel Fagan said: “The growth outlook is relatively favourable and domestic economic momentum is strong, although there are some risks to the outlook from external factors.  The main driver of growth will be the continuing recovery in employment and incomes, although following its very strong growth in recent years, employment growth is projected to gradually moderate over the forecast horizon.”

The Central Bank has also published short discussions on the Central Bank’s You Tube Channel on the outlook for the domestic and international economies, as follows:

There is also a short discussion with Conor O’Toole, Senior Economist, co-author of the signed article ‘Irish SME Investment in Economic Recovery’.