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To promote transparency and provide information, the Federal Planning Bureau regularly publishes the methods and results of its works. The publications are organised in different series, such as Outlooks, Working Papers and Planning Papers. Some reports can be consulted here, along with the Short Term Update newsletters that were published until 2015. You can search our publications by theme, publication type, author and year.
The latest update of the FPB’s medium-term outlook for Belgium shows average GDP growth reaching 2.3% during the 2004-2009 period. This development can be largely accounted for by domestic demand, whereas the role of (net) exports is expected to be more limited. As in 2003, private consumption should evolve in quite a dynamic way during the projection period (1.9% on average), mainly as a result of an expansion of households’ disposable income. At the same time, gross fixed capital formation (and particularly business investment) should recover, with annual growth reaching 3%. The structural loss of export market share should be confirmed with exports increasing by 5.3% a year on average, compared with growth of 6.3% of our potential export markets.
Inflation should remain slightly below 2% in the medium term, mainly thanks to limited wage increases and moderate rises in imported costs. Employment is expected to increase by about 32,000 jobs a year during the 2005-2009 period. This performance can be explained by several factors: a relatively favourable macroeconomic context, limited wage increases, a reduction in working time and various measures taken to promote employment. At the same time, the working population should rise considerably. As a consequence, despite the creation of many jobs, the fall in the unemployment rate should be very limited.
The FPB’s October update of the medium term outlook for Belgium does not yet take into account the measures decided within the framework of the 2005 budget.
Closed series - Short Term Update 04-04 (en),
The recovery of Belgian GDP started by mid-2003, driven by an improvement of the worldwide business cycle, which persisted during the first half of this year. As a result, GDP growth should accelerate to 2.4% in 2004 and 2.5% in 2005, after a modest increase of only 1.3% in 2003.
Economic growth in 2004 should be more balanced than in 2003, when it was boosted entirely by domestic demand and net exports contributed negatively. In 2004 net exports should make a positive contribution of 0.4% to economic growth and hence become the driving force behind the pick up in growth. Growth of final national demand should accelerate to 2% this year, from 1.7% in 2003. Next year's economic growth will depend on final national demand. The sharp rise in investment, in particular, will cause an acceleration in national demand of up to 2.6% in 2005. Combined with strong export growth, this implies a speeding up of imports, resulting in a zero contribution of net exports to economic growth next year.
After a net gain of 2,300 persons in 2003, employment should show an average annual rise of respectively 17,700 and 31,700 persons in 2004 and 2005. The unemployment rate should mark its third consecutive rise this year and only decline marginally in 2005.
The decrease in underlying inflation from 2% last year, to 1.6% in 2004 and 1.5% in 2005 will be more than compensated for by the recent oil price rises, resulting in headline inflation of 2.1% in 2004 and 2% in 2005.
Closed series - Short Term Update 03-04 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 18-04 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 05-03 (fr), (nl),
Network industries are industries whose activity involves conveying people, products or information from one place to the other via some kind of physical network. They include transport networks, information networks and utility networks. Network industries basically consist of three types of activity: upstream activities involving the production of core products such as equipment and means of transport; infrastructure activities involving the construction, maintenance and operation of the physical network; downstream activities involving the delivery of network services to final consumers. Network industries have specific characteristics from an economic point of view. Three of these are particularly notable, the last one also from a social perspective.
Working Papers - Working Paper 01-03 (en),
This working paper brings together three analyses that were carried out by the Federal Planning Bureau at the request of the Secretary of State for Energy and Sustainable Development and the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Public Health and the Environment. It looks at the harmonisation (increase) in energy levies up to the average level in our neighbouring countries and the introduction of a co2 levy. In the case of the co2 levy we analyse both the situation whereby all energy products are taxed and the case where the levy is only applicable to road transport. All policy variants are intended to reduce co2 emissions in Belgium within the context of the Kyoto Protocol. The analyses presented in this working paper were finalized in September 2001.
Working Papers - Working Paper 02-02 (en),
Working Papers - Working Paper 09-01 (fr), (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 07-00 (nl),
Working Papers - Working Paper 03-98 (en),
Closed series - Planning Paper 63 (fr),
Closed series - Planning Paper 59 (fr),
Closed series - Planning Paper 48 (fr), (nl),
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