BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has raised Brunei's 2018 growth forecast to 2 percent from the April estimate of 1.5 percent.
The growth forecast for Brunei in 2019 is also 2 percent, said the recent update of ADB's flagship annual economic publication, Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2018.
ADB's latest projections followed the 1.3 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2017 and a 2.5 percent year-on-year expansion in the first quarter of 2018, which marked positive growth for four consecutive quarters since the second quarter of 2017.
A hefty increase in domestic investment into oil and gas extraction is nudging up growth more than earlier foreseen, ADB said.
ADB added that other components of the industry sector also posted strong growth. "Output from construction increased by 24.4 percent -- reversing the 1.8 percent contraction during the first quarter of last year," it said.
Prices were highly stable, with annual inflation averaging just 0.2 percent in the first half of the year. Inflation for this year and in 2019 as a whole is still projected to be very low, according to ADB.
