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The Regions This Week
October 26, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
Central Europe
Russia is interested in nuclear power plant con- struction projects in Slovakia, the Russian Min- ister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said. Moscow expressed interest in participating in completing the second stage of Mochovce nuclear power plant and the possible construction of new power units for Bohunice plant.
The Supreme Court of Lithuania suspended tender proceedings to build a new national sta- dium in the capital Vilnius. The court said Vilnius city hall must accept a tender application from Vilniaus Nacionalinis Stadionas, which was previ- ously eliminated, and review it.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) won 33% of the vote in the local elections on October 21. However, PiS was embarrassed in Warsaw, failing to take the prestigious mayoral election to run-off after KO’s candidate Rafal Trzaskowski defeated rival PiS’ Patryk Jaki 54.1% to 30.9% to win in the first round.
Estonia and Latvia have the OECD’s most com- petitive tax systems, according to a new ranking by US-based tax policy nonprofit Tax Foundation. For the fifth year in a row, Estonia has the best tax code in the OECD, the foundation noted.
Magnus Aircraft will begin production at its plant in southern Hungary at the end of October. The electric sports aircraft maker was awarded HUF2bn (€6.2bn) in government grants for the construction of the HUF5.2bn plant.
Brexit could endanger up to 15,600 jobs in the Czech automotive industry and reduce Czech GDP by 1.4% points, a Coface study showed. As a result of such an economic shock, other jobs, consumption and the Czech economy could also be threatened.
The Polish unemployment rate came in at 5.7% in September, a drop of 1.1pp y/y, the coun-
try’s statistical office GUS said. The unemploy- ment level was only lower in late 1990, shortly before market reforms pushed it well above the 10% mark. Currently, the unemployment rate is trending down due to the tightening of the labour market that began in early 2014.
Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini intro- duced his new advisors as his “Council of the Wise” on his Facebook page. His new team con- sists of foreign policy advisor Peter Kmec, Slovak Academy of Science economic expert Vladimir Balaz, analyst Alena Sabelova, marketing expert Peter Littmann and entrepreneur Stefan Rosina.
Lithuanian industrial production ended its two- year growth series in September. The first fall in output after two years of uninterrupted expansion hints at weaker economic growth in the fourth quarter.
Hungarian digital social restaurant chain Cy- bergastro listed on the Budapest bourse’s Xtend platform. The BSE launched its Xtend platform for medium-sized companies last year; going pub- lic on the platform does not require an IPO and members can report in local accounting stand- ards, rather than IFRS.
The Czech Chamber of Deputies passed a new heated tobacco tax package in the second read- ing. The amendments introduce changes to ten tax laws, including taxation on heated tobacco, tax avoidance measures in the Income Tax Act, claims for deduction in the VAT Act, and simplifying the administration of gambling taxes.
Estonia's index of construction prices grew 1.4% y/y in the third quarter, driven by an increase in costs across the industry’s main segments, with costs of labour growing the fastest, data from Sta- tistics Estonia showed. The growth in construction prices slowed down in July-September, however.