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The Regions This Week
July 6, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 10
Central Europe
The Lithuanian government declared a nation- wide state of emergency because of drought that is expected to hit this year’s crops severely. The Lithuanian ministry of agriculture estimates that from 15% to as much as 50% of crops could be lost to drought.
EU membership approval in Czechia recovered to its pre-crisis levels in May on the back of an economic boom and a fading refugee crisis, up from a historical low of 38% only last May. If the vote on joining the EU were to happen again today just over half (54%) of Czechs would vote to sign up, the pollster STEM said.
Leaders of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic welcomed the conclusions of the EU migration summit that did away with the compulsory quota system of relocating refugees and migrants. The Visegrad Four countries have long opposed the quota system.
South Korean Doosan will create 200 new jobs
in Hungary when it opens its battery copper foil plant in Tatabanya near Budapest. The new plant will make Doosan the sole supplier of battery cop- per foil in Europe.
The Lithuanian state-owned power company Li- etuvos Energija placed €300mn in green bonds, a successful follow up to an earlier issue of the same papers. Proceeds from the placement will finance the utility’s plans to invest in wind energy, increasing the efficiency of the electricity distribu- tion network, as well as development of energy projects using waste and biomass.
Differences remained on migration issues be- tween Hungary and Germany during Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s talks in Berlin with Ger- man Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 5. It was the first time the two leaders met since the 2015 migrant crisis.
Hungary’s retail sales were 7.2% higher y/y in May, up from 4.4% in the preceding month, beat- ing estimates. Consumer confidence, at a 16-year high, and strong wage outflows are lending sup- port to the dynamic expansion of retail sales, albeit at a slower pace of growth than the rise in purchasing power of households.
Dissatisfied Slovak farmers sent an open letter to Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, protesting against agricultural subsidy frauds and and rais- ing awareness of the plight of young farmers. The farmers welcomed the interest shown by Pel- legrini in visiting the regions, but criticised him for not having time to see them when Slovak farmers drove tractors to Bratislava to protest.
Latvia's calendar-adjusted industrial produc- tion growth fell 1.1% y/y in May, the Central Sta- tistical Bureau (CSB) reported. The reading marks the first annual fall in output since August 2016, following feeble expansion below 1% in March and April.
Lithuanian state railways plans to invest up to €7bn by 2030. Most of Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai’s in- vestments will be in the modernization and devel- opment of infrastructure in order to boost safety and volume of passenger and cargo operations.
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