Page 7 - bne_newspaper_February_16_2018

The Regions This Week
February 16, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Central Europe
Opus Global, the company controlled by Prime Minister Victor Orban’s friend Lorinc Meszaros, has announced the private issuance of shares to acquire assets from the tycoon’s other companies in construction and energy, which will boost the market value of Opus to HUF75bn.
Hungary's GDP accelerated to a 4.4% y/y growth in the fourth quarter, up from a 3.9% increase
in previous three months, beating analysts’ estimates.
Hungary’s current account surplus rose to €885mn in the fourth quarter, up from €805mn a year earlier, as the December figures showed a surplus of €501mn, up from €391mn in the previous month.
Hungarian inflation hit 2.1% y/y January,
unchanged from the previous month, and prices were 0.3% higher than in December, statistics office KSH said in a preliminary report.
Polish GDP growth pushed to a seasonally adjusted 4.3% y/y in the fourth quarter, a flash estimate released by the Central Statistical Office.
Poland's consumer price index expanded 1.9% y/y in January, shedding 0.2pp compared to the annual growth rate seen in the preceding month.
Czech year-on-year inflation fell to 2.2%
in January, down 0.2 percentage points on December, while consumer prices rose 0.6% month-on-month, up from 0.1% in the previous month, according to data released by the Czech statistics office.
Slovak inflation accelerated to 2.4% year-on- year in January, and 0.8% month-on-month, the Slovak Statistics Office reported.
Seasonally-adjusted Slovak gross domestic product rose by 3.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, and by 0.9% quarter-on-quarter, according to preliminary data released by the Slovak Statistics Office.
The unemployment rate in Estonia fell 1.3pp y/y to 5.3% in the fourth quarter, data from Statistics Estonia showed.
The Lithuanian consumer price index (CPI) grew 4% y/y in January, adding 0.1pp to the annual reading from the previous month.
Latvia's consumer price index (CPI) kicked off 2018 with a growth of 2% y/y in January, data released by the country's Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) showed.
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