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The Regions This Week
January 26, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Central Europe
Deputies from Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party walked out of a meeting of parliament's national security committee on the "risks posed by the Soros Plan and the Soros network” on January 25. As a result, the meeting was adjourned as it lacked a quorum. The meeting was initiated by opposition parties after the foreign ministry's deputy-secretary Kristof Altusz told the Times of Malta that Hungary gave protection to 1,300 asy- lum seekers, even though the government has campaigned the last three years with the mes- sage that it does not want to let in migrants.
Two Chinese bidders – a consortium led by state-owned China Railway Engineering Corpora- tion, and a consortium of China Communications Construction Co., Ltd. (CCCC), a Chinese publicly traded construction company, and Strabag – were the only bidders for the upgrade and electrifica- tion of the Hungarian section of the Budapest- Belgrade railway line, the largest ever infra- structural investment in Hungary.
The construction of two new blocks at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant will begin in February ac- cording to schedule, despite Austria’s recent objection to the EU against the plant’s expansion, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
Hungary’s GKI confidence index advanced from 7.9 points in December to a new record of 8.2 points in January, the economic researcher an- nounced.
Karlovarske Mineralni Vody (KMV), the Czech soft drinks company, has agreed to buy Pep- siCo's operations in the Czech Republic, Slova- kia and Hungary for an undisclosed price. KMV,
owned by the Italian Pasquale family, said the acquisition of PepsiCo's three businesses, which had annual sales of around CZK4.2bn ($202mn), would increase its annual turnover by half and make it the largest supplier of mineral water and non-alcoholic beverages in the three countries.
Slovak unemployment fell to a new low of 5.94% in December, down 2.8 percentage points year- on-year and virtually unchanged (down 0.01pp) month-on-month, the Slovak labour ministry an- nounced. Jan Richter, labour minister, said unem- ployment might fall another 1pp this year.
Poland’s economic sentiment indicator (SI) came in at 113.5 points in January, jumping as many as seven points against the November reading and 11.5 points compared to January last year,
a monthly survey carried out by statistical office GUS showed.
Polish state-controlled oil and gas conglomer- ate PKN Orlen posted net profit of PLN1.59bn (€380mn) in the fourth quarter, a drop of 11.1% y/y, the company said. The net result comes 2.9% below consensus.
Estonian banks posted a net profit of €335mn
in 2017, a drop of 6% against 2016, the Baltic state’s central bank Eesti Pank reported. The fall in profit is a result of a drop in dividend income earned from subsidiaries, as undistributed profit from earlier years was paid out, Eesti Pank noted. Excluding the impact of dividend payouts, the sector’s net profit would have been 13% higher than in 2016 mainly due to lending growth, according to the central bank.