World Bank Ups Ukraine's GDP Growth Forecast to 6% in 2007

Yesterday a World Bank economic advisor announced that it had raised its forecast for Ukraine’s 2007 GDP growth from 5.5% to 6.0%, following a quarterly review of macroeconomic data. The revision upward reflects a further optimism in Ukraine; the World Bank raised its GDP growth forecast in April from 4.5% to 5.5%. The World Bank is predicting GDP growth of 5.5% in 2008 and 5.0% in 2009. The World Bank also made a positive revision to its inflation forecast from 10.9% to 9.7% in 2007. Its forecasts for inflation growth in the next two years are 9.6% in 2008 and 8.3% in 2009. Polina Khomenko: We maintain our forecast of 7.3% yoy GDP growth for 2007, our inflation forecast is more conservative -10.5% yoy, but it might be subject to a downward revision if the government’s social spending does not take too populist a turn ahead of the elections in September.