Page 5 - bne_newspaper_April_12_2019

The Regions This Week
April 12, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Central Europe
Matrai Eromu inaugurated Hungary's largest solar park. Hungary's second-biggest generator of electricity put the HUF5.4bn (€16.8mn) solar park in northeast Hungary into operation after two months of trial run. With a maximum capacity of 22.6MW, the Bukkabrany facility sits on a retired coal ash landfill on 33 hectares.
An estimated 80% of Poland’s public schools and kindergartens went on strike following the fiasco of last-ditch pay negotiations between teacher unions and the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party on the previous day. The strike is the biggest
since the early 1990s in the chronically underpaid education sector.
The Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal probe into judges at a court in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The investigation came shortly after the court convicted dozens of former Soviet army personnel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the crackdown at the Vilnius TV tower when Lithuania was seeking to break away from the Soviet Union in 1991.
EP Energy owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky recorded a 22.1% drop in Ebitda
to €296mn, with adjusted Ebitda at €327mn, according to the EP Energy annual report for 2018. Consolidated sales increased by 0.3% to €1.8bn.
Estonia blocked plans for a huge offshore wind farm, on the grounds it was a potential threat
to national security. The government declined
a permit to Saare Wind Energy that had been working on the project with capacity of up to 600MW since 2015.
The homeownership rate in the Czech Republic reached 67.5% in 2018, including 38.7% households owning a house and 28.8% a flat, according to the Income and Living Conditions survey released by the Czech Statistics Office.
Renters and co-operative housing owners represent 19% and 7.9%, respectively.
Latvia is planning wide-reaching municipal reforms. A proposal from the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry would see the number of municipalities in the country cut from 119 to just 35.
Passenger numbers at Hungary’s Liszt Ferenc International Airport rose 5.7% y/y to 3.1mn
in the first quarter, aviation market intelligence provider CAPA reported, maintaining its position as the fastest growing airport in Europe. Passenger growth slowed from 17% in Q1 2017.
Estonia's consumer price index (CPI) growth came in at 2.3% y/y in March, data from Statistics Estonia showed on April 5. CPI expansion was driven by fast-growing prices in the housing sector, which contributed half of the overall increase, the statistics office said.
Poland’s economy will expand by 3.8% in 2019,
down from 5.1% last year, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook. The IMF’s forecast
puts Poland top of the emerging and developing Europe group.
Latvia’s foreign trade deficit fell 16.7% y/y to €140.5mn in February, provisional data released by the country’s Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) showed. Trade dynamics remained feeble in the second month. Exports grew just 1% y/y to €959mn while imports declined 1.7% y/y to €1.1bn.
Slovakia’s parliament approved scrapping a special levy for retail chains as proposed by the Slovak National Party (SNS) in fast-track legislative proceedings, submitted in reaction to a preliminary ruling to suspend Slovakia’s application of a levy issued by the European Commission.