STA, February 28, 2018 – Slovenia's economy expanded by 5% in real terms in 2017, the fastest pace since 2007, after growth in the final quarter accelerated to 6% at the annual level, the Statistics Office said on Wednesday. Seasonally and working-day adjusted, GDP grew by 5.4%.
Annual growth was driven by external demand, as exports rose by 10.6% year-on-year, almost double the rate of the year before.
Foreign trade thus contributed 1.3 percentage points to the overall annual growth rate, the statisticians said.
But domestic demand accounted for an increasing share of growth, having accelerated to 4.1% from just under 3% in 2016.
Investment spending surged 8.4% in 2017, having actually declined marginally in the year before.
Total employment reached 986,000, the highest figure since 2008 and an increase of 2.8%.
The quarterly data show the economy continued to operate at high revolutions in the last three months of the year.
Export growth accelerated to 12.3% year-on-year and imports rose by 11.1%.
Domestic spending grew by 4.5% compared to 2.9% in the third quarter.
Investment growth accelerated from 3.8% to 7.7% on the back of an 11.9% surge in gross fixed capital formation.
Investments in buildings rose by over 18% and investments in machinery and equipment by 8.2%.
The preliminary estimate is slightly above forecasts, which put the growth rate at just under 5%.
Final data will not be available until August. Last year the growth figure was revised upwards by 0.6 percentage points.
Domestic as well as international forecasts suggest growth will slow down but it is still projected to be in the 4% range.
