FORECASTS

FORECASTS Every month The Economist polls a group of economic forecasters and calculates the average of their predictions of growth, inflation and current-account deficits for 15 countries and for the whole euro-11 area. The table also shows the range of forecasts for growth; the previous month's forecast, where different, is shown in brackets. This month our panel has again become more bullish about Japan. It now expects Japanese GDP to grow by 0.5% (up from 0.1%) this year and 0.6% (not 0.1%) next year, although it still expects Japan's consumer prices to fall. Our forecasters have also revised up marginally their predictions for several European countries. The panel still expects growth of 2.0% this year for the whole euro-11 area, but it has raised its forecast to 2.8% next year (up from 2.7%).