Finance Ministry expects 2022 Czech GDP growth to reach 2.4 percent

In its new macroeconomic prognosis, the Ministry of Finance announced on Wednesday that it expects Czechia’s gross domestic product to grow by 2.4 percent for the year 2022. The estimate is 0.2 percent higher when compared to the ministry’s August projection. However, the prognosis estimates the economy will contract by 0.2 percent next year.

Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura said on Wednesday that the Czech economy began to decline in the third quarter of this year and that he expects a quarter-on-quarter decline also in the last three months of 2022 as well as in the first quarter of 2023. He told journalists that the Czech economy is not under threat of a major recession unless a severe external shock were to occur.

The Finance Ministry also improved its estimate on the level that inflation will reach this year, from August’s 16.2 percent to 15 percent. In 2023, inflation is expected to reach 9.5 percent.

Meanwhile, officials expect the public deficit for this year to lie at 4.6 percent of GDP and at 4.3 percent next year.