In the Autumn Economic Forecasts, published in Brussels, the community executive points out that “domestic demand remains strong, but the growth of GDP in Portugal should slowdown in 2019 and 2020 compared with the weakening of net exports,” projecting figures under 2% in the next two years.

For 2018, Brussels maintains the forecast for growth of the Portuguese GDP by 2.2%, as anticipated in the previous summer forecasts (released in July), while in the proposal for the State Budget for 2019 (OE2019), adopted last month, the government maintained the 2.3% target.

The difference of the projections of Brussels and Lisbon for 2019 is bigger, as the state budget anticipates a 2.2% growth of GDP (which already is a slight downward revision of the government in relation to the 2.3% estimate of the stability programme, presented in April), the commission on Thursday expected a slowdown in the growth of the Portuguese economy of 1.8% next year and 1.7% in 2020.