PRAGUE, April 3 (Xinhua) -- The Czech Ministry of Finance said on Thursday that new U.S. tariffs are expected to reduce the country's economic growth by 0.6 to 0.7 percentage points this year.

"The first estimates by experts at the ministry on the impact of the introduction of U.S. tariffs on Czech economy indicate a possible slowdown in this year's gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 0.6-0.7 percentage points," it said on social media platform X.

"This is only an approximate estimate. The reality will depend on a number of factors," it added.

In its January Macroeconomic Forecast, the ministry expected the country's GDP to grow by 2.3 percent this year.

Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura criticized the U.S. imposition of a 20 percent tariff on all exports from the European Union (EU).

"The trade war initiated by Donald Trump is a negative-sum game," he wrote on X, adding that the main victims will always be the end consumers in both the United States and the Czech Republic, who will have to pay the cost of the tariffs.

Trump has introduced a broad tariff package, branded as reciprocal, imposing a 10-percent "minimum baseline tariff" on all imports to the United States and a 20 percent rate on imports from the EU.

Also on Thursday, Czech Banking Association's chief economist Jaromir Sindel told Czech News Agency that the impact of the U.S. tariffs would slow down Czech economic growth by roughly 0.3 percentage points per year. The association's macroeconomic forecast from February this year expected GDP growth of 2.1 percent this year and 2.4 percent next year. Enditem

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