Page 30 - bne_Magazine_October_2017

30 I Central Europe bne October 2017
Brexit to boost CEE's GDP as migrants
"boomerang" home
Clare Nuttall in Bucharest
The return of citizens to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) after the UK’s planned 2019 exit from the EU will hike GDP across the region and provide a corresponding boost
for local real estate markets, a new study by Colliers International finds.
The EU member states of CEE cur- rently have a 7mn strong diaspora, with the largest numbers of expats working in fellow EU member states in Western Europe. This has contributed to the tightening of labour markets across the region and is estimated to have constrained economic growth.
Colliers has, however, concluded: “We believe that the emigration wave has peaked and that workers will start
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to return eastwards to CEE-6.” Its report covers the Visegrad 4 countries of Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary plus Romania and Bulgaria.
Ahead of Brexit, scheduled for March 2019, the British pound is weakening, which, Colliers anticipates, will "prompt a wave of workers in Western Europe
to return to CEE-6 countries".
“The upsides are likely to be higher demand for office and industrial real estate space as indigenous workers
return eastwards; as well as filling the skills gaps that these workers created by seeking work in the West,” Colliers forecasts in its report, entitled “Labour Force Boomerang”, published on September 11.
“[A] combination of wage rises; low taxes; better governance and legal frameworks; more modern education systems;
a more familiar cultural milieu and encouragement from governments could well be 'pull' factors to encourage those who have migrated to return,” commented
“The emigration wave has peaked and that workers will start to return eastwards”