Flash Notes

14 de Dezembro de 2022
Portugal Macroeconomic and financial outlook | December 2022
  • In Q3 2022, GDP posted a quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.4% and 4,9% year-on-year, above our forecast and suggesting that annual growth will surpass our current (under revision) forecast of 6,3%.
  • On a year-on-year basis, domestic demand contributed with 2,9 percentage points, benefiting from a still strong growth of consumption and exports. Private consumption was driven by a strong increase on car sales, mainly reflecting basis effects. GFCG was the component more affected by higher energy prices and interest rates, declining 1,7% qoq, and slowing down yoy to 1,2%.
  • For 2023, we expect a strong deceleration of activity, reflecting the impact of the energy crisis in Europe and strong headwinds coming from higher interest rates; inflation is expected to remain high due to persistently high energy prices and contagion to other goods; unemployment should rise a bit reflecting the strong deceleration of activity. Hence, despite the tailwinds due to the still comfortable position of households in terms of excess savings and also derived from the stimuli coming from the execution of NGEU, we consider that the increase in interest rates, the persistence of high inflation and the negative impact of the energy crises on external demand will prevail, causing significant deceleration of economic activity.