The FINANCIAL — Respondents to the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) for the second quarter of 2017 reported average point forecasts for inflation of 1.6%, 1.5% and 1.7% in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.
That represents upward revisions of 0.2 percentage points for 2017 and 0.1 percentage points for 2019 (expectations for 2018 were unchanged). Average longer-term inflation expectations (which refer to 2021) remained unchanged at 1.8%, according to ECB.
SPF respondents revised their expectations for growth in euro area economic activity upwards for 2017, by 0.2 percentage points to 1.7%, and for 2018 by 0.1 percentage points to 1.6%. There were no changes to expectations for 2019 (1.5%) or the longer term (1.6%).
Unemployment rate expectations continue to imply a declining trajectory. The average point forecasts were 9.4%, 9.1% and 8.7% for 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. Relative to the SPF for the first quarter of 2017, this represents downward revisions of 0.1, 0.1 and 0.2 percentage points, for 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. The average point forecast for the longer-term unemployment rate (which refers to 2021) was revised downwards by 0.1 percentage points, to 8.4%.
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