Colombia and Malaysia forecasts take top honors for 2018
We're delighted to announce that in its annual survey of leading economists, Consensus Economics has named IHS Markit as the most accurate forecasters for Colombia and Malaysia. Consensus Economics surveyed the world's leading forecasters for their predictions for gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation for 44 industrialized economies, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe and Latin America over a 24-month forecasting cycle beginning in January 2017.
Our economists who cover Colombia -- Chief Latin America economist Rafael Amiel and economist Ellie Vorhaben -- were the most accurate of the 20 forecasters at predicting Colombia's growth domestic product and inflation through 2018. They predicted Colombia's 2018 GDP growth and inflation with the lowest mean absolute error rate of 0.3 summed across both variables. The actual results were 2.66 percent for GDP and 3.18 percent for inflation.
Bree Neff, associate director of APAC economics, received the Consensus Economics Award for Malaysia, for being the best overall of 23 forecasters at predicting the eventual 2018 outcomes. For the survey period, she predicted Malaysia's 2018 GDP growth and inflation with the lowest mean absolute error rate of 1.26 summed across both variables. The actual results were 4.72 percent and 0.97 percent, respectively.