The movement of the CEIZ index for January indicates a moderate strengthening of economic activity at the beginning of this year, it was announced on Wednesday by the Economic Institute, Zagreb (EIZ), which estimates that the annual growth rate of real GDP in the first quarter could amount to 2.8 percent, which would be a significant improvement compared to the growth of 2 percent in the last quarter of 2017.
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As announced on Wednesday by the EIZ, the CEIZ index increased by 0.67 index points in January 2018 compared to December 2017.
At the same time, the index value in January was also 0.57 index points higher compared to the average index value in the last quarter of 2017.
This suggests the conclusion that economic activity in the country has somewhat strengthened compared to the last quarter of 2017, when economic activity observed through the prism of quarterly GDP growth rates stagnated, the EIZ emphasizes.
However, considering that the index value in the first month of this year was lower compared to January 2017, the EIZ states that it can be concluded that the strengthening of economic activity at the beginning of 2018 is not as intense as it was in the first quarter of last year.
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“Based on the movement of the CEIZ index, we therefore expect that the annual growth rate of real GDP in the first quarter of this year could amount to 2.8 percent, which is a significant improvement compared to the GDP growth rate of 2 percent achieved in the last quarter of 2017. However, to be sure that this improvement in economic activity is of a permanent nature, we will have to wait for the announcements of the index values for February and March 2018,” concludes the EIZ announcement.
The CEIZ index is a coincident economic indicator, that is, a monthly composite indicator of the business cycle developed at the EIZ, and its purpose is to provide timely information about the current state of the business cycle, which is why the value of the CEIZ index changes simultaneously with changes in the business cycle.
This index is a single-number indicator of the business cycle that contains information that would otherwise need to be collected by analyzing a large number of different economic series, and unlike the time series of quarterly GDP, the CEIZ index provides a monthly assessment of the state of the economy, thereby providing more precise information about changes occurring over shorter periods of time.
The CEIZ index is available one to three months before the announcement of quarterly GDP data, which is why economic policy makers and the interested public can timely monitor economic trends, the EIZ notes.
