“Our growth forecast of 5.75% is reasonable”, maintains François Villeroy de Galhau

INTERVIEW

The Banque de France wants to be resolutely optimistic, more in any case than the government. While the executive expects growth of 5% for 2021, the public establishment has recently revised its forecast upwards, to 5.75%. “Our economic forecasts made completely independent of the government. On this forecast, we are vigilant, but we remain confident,” explained François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, on Tuesday on Europe 1.

“We should have returned to the level before the pandemic in early 2022, so a little earlier than expected”

“Of course, the health situation is the first hazard. But we are confident because when we look for fifteen months, each wave of health restrictions has had increasingly limited economic effects. So our forecast should not be significantly affected even if there were to be a new set of restrictions in the future. Our forecast of 5.75% is reasonable, “he insisted.

So why this optimism? “Every month we conduct an economic survey of more than 8,000 companies. We saw in June that the activity should fall to 3% of losses compared to the pre-Covid level”, replied the governor of Bank of France. “And when we extend the trend, we should have returned to the level before the pandemic at the start of 2022. So a little earlier than expected. Everything that we have seen since on household consumption, on business investment is going in that Sens.”

“Vaccination is also the best protection for our jobs”

But, while France is not yet out of the sanitary situation, and while the Delta variant is gaining ground in France, the governor of the Banque de France has launched an appeal. “I believe in the absolute necessity of vaccination,” he said. “Vaccination is the best protection against this delta variant and it is also the best protection for our jobs.”

Because the corollary of the health crisis is savings that have exploded, and now stand between 142 and 180 billion euros. “This savings is already used for economic activity. But what we expect is that it will be used, consumed very gradually from next year,” assured François Villeroy de Galhau. “But the rate of consumption will depend, it is true, on household confidence and in particular on the fact that we are completely out of this crisis.”

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