BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 16. The GDP growth in Central Asia in 2023 is expected to stand at 4.9 percent, Trend reports, citing the latest regional outlook from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
According to the report, the forecast has been revised upwards slightly, compared to the September estimations (by 0.1 percentage points). This is mainly due to high oil and gas prices for commodity exporters and increased flows of labor, capital and remittances, as well as intermediation growth.
Moreover, regional GDP growth for 2024 has been upgraded even further to 5.4 percent, due to increase in infrastructure investments, high commodity prices and relocation of Russian business.
At the same time, according to the EBRD's estimations, Central Asia's economic growth stood at 4.3 percent in 2022.
Meanwhile, economic output in all the EBRD regions is estimated to have grown by 3.2 percent year-on-year from January through September 2022, and around 2.4 percent in the year as a whole.
"While this was slower than in 2021 as the war on Ukraine took its toll and the post-Covid recovery has mostly run out of steam, this outcome nonetheless exceeded expectations, in particular in central Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Economies in Central Asia and the Caucasus benefitted from intermediating trade to Russia as well as inflows of capital and educated migrants from Russia," the report added.