Page 4 - bne_newspaper_December_15_2017

The Regions This Week
December 15, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
Central Europe
Prime ministers of the Visegrad Four countries have agreed to contribute €35mn to finance a border control programme in Libya, according to a joint declaration ahead of the first day of the EU summit on migration.
The Polish government will be one of conti- nuity, Poland’s new Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pledged in his maiden speech in the parliament. Morawiecki vowed to tackle Poland’s poor air quality, invest more in infrastructure and affordable housing, take care of Polish compa- nies, as well as boost financing of health care.
The Sejm passed controversial laws on December 8 making the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party the decisive influence on appointing judges in the country’s judiciary.
Polish unemployment fell 1.6pp y/y to 6.6% in November, according to a preliminary estimate.
Poland's consumer price index expanded 2.5% y/y in November, gaining 0.4pp compared to October.
Poland’s current account showed a surplus of PLN2.45bn (€575mn) in October, swinging from deficit both in monthly and annual terms.
Foreign direct investment in Poland came in at PLN54.9bn (€13bn) in 2016, which is a drop of 4.6% compared to 2015, when a record amount of PLN57.6bn of FDI arrived in the country.
Hungary’s Opus Global and Prague-based EP Power Europe have agreed to buy the 72.6% stake held by Germany’s RWE Power and EnBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg in Hungary’s second largest power plant Matrai Eromu. Opus is part-owned by billionaire Lorinc Meszaros, mayor of Felcsut, widely seen as a proxy for Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The rise in Czech consumer prices slowed down
in November to 2.6% year-on-year (down 0.3 percentage points compared to October) and to 0.1% month-on-month.
The Czech current account returned to a CZ- K15bn surplus in October after September’s CZK3.6bn deficit. The surplus rose almost four times year-on-year compared to the CZK3.9bn surplus reported a year ago.
The Slovak Republic’s trade surplus rose to €505mn in October from €470.5mn in September, though it was down €26.5mn compared to a year ago.
The Slovak government will borrow a gross €4.5bn in 2018 via bonds, treasury bills and loans
to cover the budget deficit and bond redemptions, the government’s Debt and Liquidity Management agency Ardal announced. This marks a fall of around 30% from the around €6bn borrowed this year.
Slovak industrial production increased by 5.4% year-on-year in October, the Slovak Statistics Of- fice announced on December 12 in a preliminary estimate, up from 2.3% y/y in September. Season- ally adjusted, industrial production increased by 1.4% month-on-month.
The Lithuanian current account showed a surplus of €305.9mn in October, the Bank of Lithuania reported on December 14. The Estonian current account showed a surplus of €33mn in October, representing a fall of 53.2% m/m and a growth of 135.8% y/y. The Latvian current account showed
a surplus of €95mn in October, after registering a gap of €45mn the previous month.
The Lithuanian parliament passed next year’s budget, which assumes revenues will come in at nearly €9.1bn, while expenditure will amount to €9.5mn. Defence expenditure will reach 2% of the Lithuanian GDP, the first time the Baltic state has earmarked so much for defence, in line with the recommendation from Nato.