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The Regions This Week
November 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Central Europe
Prague is considered to be the second best city to live and do business in Central and Southeast Europe according to a study by the international consultancy company Arcadis. The best CEE city is Vienna, which was also ranked as fifth best among 100 selected cities in the world. Prague is ranked as the 23 best city in the world.
7,000 jobs will be axed in Hungary's public administration from January 1, the latest issue of the official government gazette showed. The government has mandated 2,600 job cuts at ministries and 4,210 redundancies at budgetary institutions.
Lithuania beat its neighbours in the World Bank’s 2019 Doing Business list. Lithuania’s advance in the ranking came on the back of re- forms the Baltic state carried out to better protect minority investors, facilitate paying taxes, as well as make exporting easier. Estonia dropped four places to 16th while Latvia remained in 19th posi- tion.
Fitch Ratings affirmed Latvia’s long-term issuer rating at A- with a stable outlook. The rating is supported by the Baltic state's solid public financ- es, institutional strength, and a credible policy framework that come with EU and by Eurozone membership, Fitch wrote, largely repeating its as- sessment from a year ago.
Polish company Polcotton is to construct a hy- droponic greenhouse in Kazakhstan’s Turkestan Oblast. The project is in line with Kazakhstan’s ongoing diversification programme, which sees the agricultural sector as a priority area targeted for development to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil exports.
The Pirate Party representative Zdenek Hrib became the new mayor of Prague, supported by a coalition of independent parties. Hrib will re- place former mayor of Prague Adriana Krnacova from the ruling Ano party of Prime Minister Andrej Babis. The new coalition will have a majority of 39 representatives in the 65-member city council.
Hungary’s state-owned venture capital fund backed PanIQ Franchising, a Hungarian-owned, US-based operator of escape rooms. The HUF245mn (€755,000) investment was the first foreign investment by the fund, which operates under the umbrella of the state-owned Hungarian Development Bank (MFB).
Poland’s economic sentiment indicator fell 0.9pp
to 106.8 in October, data released by the European Commission showed on October 30. The fall sees the headline indicator at the lowest level since December, with all sub-indices deteriorating. That gives a somewhat more solid footing to predic- tions of faltering growth in Poland.
Real estate prices in the Slovak capital Bratisla- va are catching up with those in the neighbouring Czech capital Prague. The price of older flats in Bratislava jumped 8.2% y/y to reach €2,425 per sqm in 3Q18, according to Bencont Investments as cited by Pravda.sk. The jump was due to an increase in prices for new buildings, which lead to a decline in supply on the market.
The Latvian economy grew a seasonally adjusted 5.5% y/y in the third quarter, a flash reading from the Central Statistical Bureau showed. The result shows the Latvian economy accelerated growth
in comparison to the revised seasonally adjusted expansion of 4.6% y/y in April-June.