At the beginning of 2011, the recovery phase seen in the global economy over the past two years reached a degree of maturity. Activity in the various economic regions should gradually progress from being export-led to become more broadly based. At the same time, the improvement in the economic...

Since the previous forecasts were published in February 2009, the downturn in activity and international trade in late 2008 and early 2009 has proved to be even sharper than initially expected. An unprecedentedly deep recession has spread across the various economic regions of the world,...

The backdrop to the forecasting exercise paints a contrasting picture : the initial situation of the projections appears slightly more favourable than in the previous forecast exercise of autumn 2005, with the Belgian economy displaying undoubted momentum at the beginning of 2006. However, a...

Since the publication of the previous forecasts in June 2008, the economic outlook has deteriorated very rapidly, both at global level and for Belgium. The financial tensions which emerged in mid 2007 turned into a serious crisis, and the contagion effects on the real economy proliferated,...

Coinciding with the publication in the ECB monthly bulletin of new Eurosystem projections for the euro area, this article presents the results for the Belgian economy for 2008 and 2009. Since the previous forecasts were published in December 2007, the deterioration in the external factors has...

Since the publication of the Bank’s spring projections, the growth of activity in the euro area in the first half of 2006 has been stronger than previously predicted and oil prices, after rising further during the summer, have fallen to a level hovering around 60 dollars since October 2006. In...