Slovenia's economy will expand 2.2 percent this year, the Bank of Slovenia said on Tuesday, a significant increase on the forecast it issued in September for 2015 growth of 1.3 percent. It said gross domestic product would rise 1.8 percent in 2016, unchanged from its September view.
"Economic growth will be gradual and accompanied by low inflation," Ales Delakorda, head of the central bank's analytics centre, told a news conference.
Average annual inflation is expected to fall to minus 0.1 percent this year versus 0.4 percent in 2014.
The economy of the small euro zone country, which narrowly avoided an international bailout for its banks in 2013, grew 2.6 percent last year, driven by a strong rise of exports.
Last month the government's macroeconomic institute forecast 2015 GDP growth at 2.4 percent and 2016 growth at 2 percent.
Delakorda said exports would continue rising and were expected to grow by 4.7 percent this year and 4.9 percent in 2016.
On a negative note, investment will rise by 1.9 percent this year but will remain flat in 2016, weighed down by weaker state investments, which will be lower than this year.
Slovenia adopted the euro in 2007, the first ex-communist country to do so, but its export-oriented economy was severely hit by the global crisis the following year.
After a renewed recession in 2012 and 2013, when the government rescued local banks with a 3.3 billion euro capital injection, the economy returned to growth in 2014.
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