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bne November 2018 The Month That Was I 7
Economics
Eastern Europe
The Ukrainian government hopes to close a new deal with its biggest donor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and release the badly needed financial support after its $17.5bn extended fund facility was effectively frozen for foot-dragging on reforms, the local press in Ukraine reported on October 10.
Russians are healthier and better educated than their per capita income would suggest, the World Bank found in a survey. The education and health of those Russians born in 2017 by the time they come of age at 18 years old will be comparable to their peers in countries with high standards of life, the World Bank's Human Capital
Index (HCI) shows.
Russia's economic growth slowed
in September according to the base sector data released by the RosStat sta- tistics service on October 19, both on the output and demand side. After a report on slowing industrial output growth in September, transportation turnover also indicated weaker activity with transpor- tation, and agriculture decelerating
but construction activity inching up
by 0.1% y/y.
Ukraine is Europe’s poorest country with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in current prices in US dollar terms at $2,964.193 in 2018, according to October's update of the World Eco- nomic Outlook published by the Interna- tional Monetary Fund (IMF). Ukraine is behind Moldova ($3,226.717), Belarus ($6,020.043) and Russia ($10,950.492).
Russia's Finance Ministry will cut the net domestic borrowing plan by RUB380bn ($5.7bn) in 2018, Interfax said on October 9 citing the ministry's debt department head Konstantin Vish- kovsky. Earlier in the year the Finance Ministry increased the net borrowings plan by RUB227bn to RUB1.04 trillion.
In January-August 2018 Belarus increased the export of merchandise and services by 18.3% in comparison with the same period of last year to $27.4bn, said the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB).
Central Europe
Poland’s economy will expand 4.4% in 2018, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook. The projection for this year has been revised upwards by 0.3pp compared to the IMF’s previous forecast from April, reflecting “stronger- than-expected investment growth,” the IMF wrote.
Latvia’s foreign trade deficit increased 35.4% y/y to €395mn in August, provisional data released by the coun- try’s Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) showed. The widening of the defi-
cit owes to imports once again growing faster than exports in August.
Hungary's CPI reached a five and a half year high in September, as con- sumer prices accelerated to an annual 3.6% growth. The figure beats the Mag- yar Nemzeti Bank’s 3.4% forecast and the 3.5% median consensus of analysts.
years, with the public finance deficit at 0.1% of GDP next year and a balanced budget in 2020. The Ministry of Finance promised both the debt and deficit will fall in the next two years before record- ing a surplus of 0.2% of GDP in 2021 for the first time in Slovakia’s history.
Southeast Europe
The IMF cut its growth outlook for Turkey to 3.5% in 2018 and 0.4% in 2019 in the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook. With Turkey mired in economic turmoil, the IMF also called for an exten- sive set of measures to shield the economy.
Croatia recorded Central and Southeast Europe’s highest increase in insolvencies in 2017, up 40.1%, a Coface study showed. Most countries in the region experienced higher rates of economic growth in 2017, but the overall number of insolvencies in the region still rose by 6.4%.
More than a third of the population in Bulgaria and Romania was at risk of poverty or social exclusion last year, Eurostat data showed. According to the study, 38.9% of the Bulgarians and 35.7% of the Romanians were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
Turkey's unemployment rate rose to 10.8% in July from 10.2% in June, nation- al statistics institute TUIK announced. The news highlighted “a trend that is likely to continue for a while given the ongoing deterioration in the growth outlook,” ING Bank said in a research note.
Eurasia
Azerbaijan can boost its non-oil exports by 16% with petrochemical out- put at new plants developed by SOCAR Polymer, AzerNews reported director general of the company Farid Jafarov as saying. Turkey would be a priority market for sales, while shipments to Russia and into European markets are planned.
FDI in Poland dropped substantially in 2017, coming in at PLN34.7bn (€8.1bn), which is a drop of 44.1% compared
to 2016, when a record amount of PLN61.8bn of FDI arrived in the country, a report from the National Bank of Poland (NBP) said.
The Slovak government approved the draft state budget for the next three
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