Troika : Ireland may meet deficit target for 2011

The international troika of European Commission, ECB and IMF published Thursday statement assessing it staff teams' visit to Ireland and quarterly review of the government's economic programme, saying Ireland's implementation of austerity programme was strong. The statement said that Ireland might probably meet its deficit target of 11.5 percent of GDP set for 2011. Besides, Irish government had also completed the key initial phase of the comprehensive financial sector reforms launched in March, and key structural reforms were being put in place. The statement also declared that Ireland's economic growth in first half of 2011 was stronger than expected. But the slowdown in key trading partners was likely to cool Ireland's export growth. In addition, domestic demand was expected to contract slightly faster than was projected at the time of the previous review. Together, these factors would dampen the economic recovery with real GDP growth rate expected to be about 1 percent in both 2011 and 2012. The Troika also confirmed the Irish government would be firmly committed to fiscal consolidation to put the country's debt on a downward path, by bringing the general government deficit to below no more than 8.6 percent of GDP by 2012, and 3 percent of GDP by 2015. What's more, the Irish government was implementing structural reforms to support job creation and growth. What's more, legislative changes were being introduced to enhance competition in the medical, legal and pharmacy sectors with the view to lowering costs. The Irish government was implementing a program supported by EU/IMF, including loans from the European Union and EU member states amounting to 45.0 billion euro and 22.5 billion euro from IMF. Ireland's contribution is 17.5 billion. The European Commission and IMF will decide whether to approve the review in the coming weeks. Once approved, which is highly possible, Ireland will obtain disbursement of 3.8 billion euro from IMF and 4.2 billion euro from EU.