IRELAND’S GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP) will fall by 1.5% this year, according to a new forecast by Davy – but will regain 1.2% in 2011, providing the first increase in the country’s native economic output for four years.

The latest forecast issued by the firm today suggested that Gross Domestic Product would average out to a growth rate of 0.3% over the year, while the same measure of output would increase by 1.9% in 2011.

While Gross Domestic Product had returned to positive growth in the first quarter of 2010, thus officially ending the recession from that standpoint, the measure of Gross National Product – which is seen by many as a truer barometer of the success of native Irish businesses, as it removes output declared in Ireland for taxation purposes only – has been in constant decline since Q1 of 2008.

Commenting on the growth in national exports in the first half of the year, Davy believed the rate was “unlikely to be epeated in the face of currency headwinds and a possible turn in the global inventory cycle.”

Export growth was downgraded from 6% in a previous estimate to 4.9% in the new report.