France ups economic growth forecasts - Les Echos
PARIS (Reuters) - France will raise its economic growth forecasts for 2014, 2016 and 2017 in its annual stability programme to be submitted to Brussels, in a plan that honours its European commitments on budget deficit reduction, Les Echos reported on Monday citing unnamed sources.
The French government is to present its main long-term economic and financial forecasts as part of its annual stability programme at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
France will increase its growth forecast for 2014 to 1 percent, from the 0.9 percent previously included in its 2014 budget, the paper said, while leaving it unchanged at 1.7 percent for 2015 and raising it to 2.25 from 2.0 percent for both 2016 and 2017.
No-one at the Finance Ministry was immediately available for comment.
France vowed last week to honour its commitment to reduce its deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, as it unveiled planned tax and public spending cuts for the next three years aimed at spurring economic recovery.
(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva; Editing by David Holmes)
