Ireland’s central bank has lowered its forecast for the country’s 2012 GDP growth from 1.8% to just 0.5%. The bank also forecast that GDP growth in 2013 would reach 2.1%.
Bloomberg News cites a bank statement:
The slowdown in the external environment has occurred against the background of an intensification of the sovereign debt crisis, the effects of which has now broadened beyond the financial system to the wider economy.
Personal spending in Ireland is expected to fall -1.5% in 2012. Exports, originally forecast to rise 5.2%, are now expected to increase by 3.9%. The country’s unemployment rate is forecast at 14.6%.
The austerity regime that Ireland adopted has not helped the country recover, and there’s nothing expected in 2012 to turn that around.
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