Dutch Think Tank Lowers Country's Growth Rate Forecast Amid Brexit Uncertainty

Next year's growth forecasts for the Dutch economy have been revised downward from over 2.1 percent to 1.6 percent, the country's Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Netherlands' GDP is expected to grow 1.7 percent in 2016 before decelerating to 1.6 percent in 2017 amid uncertainties generated by the United Kingdom's looming departure from the European Union, CPB said in a statement.

"The underlying recovery of the economy is progressing, but the uncertainty following the UK Brexit referendum, in the short term, will have negative effects on consumption and investments, as well as a negative impact on the world trade that is relevant for the Netherlands," the leading Dutch think tank said in the statement.

Brexit was deemed responsible for 0.4 percentage points of the downward revision due to its impact on international trade relevant to the Netherlands, with falling natural gas production acting as a further limit to growth, according to CPB.

The Dutch economy began recovering from the 2008 recession in late 2013, excluding the temporary 2010-2012 recovery, when annual GDP growth moved into the green. Growth surpassed 2 percent in early 2015 before slowly declining back to under 2 percent.

On June 23, the United Kingdom held a referendum to determine whether or not the country should leave the European Union. According to the final results, 51.9 percent of voters, or 17.4 million people, decided to support Brexit, while about 16.1 million opposed it.