Page 7 - BNE_magazine_04_2019

bne April 2019 The Month That Was I 7
Economics
Eastern Europe
Fixed investment growth in Russia
in 2018 amounted to 4.3%, accord- ing to data released by the statistics agency Rosstat. Nominal investment amounted to RUB17.5 trillion ($266bn). The growth rate of the indicator in 2018 exceeded the official 2.9% forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development almost 1.5-fold. Rosstat also retroactive- ly revised investment growth for 2017 from 4.4% to 4.8%.
Ukraine's 2M19 state budget revenue rose 12.0% y/y to UAH125bn ($4.6bn), which is 1.0% below plan, the State Treasury provisionally reported. In Febru- ary alone, Ukraine’s state budget revenue surged 24.8% y/y to UAH70.2bn, which is 8.3% y/y above plan. The unusual rise was mostly due to the budget’s special fund revenue from the customs amnesty of vehicles acquired in 2014-2018 but registered in EU states.
Central Europe
Gross wages in the Polish corpo- rate sector grew 7.5% y/y in Febru- ary, 0.1pp above the annual expansion recorded in the preceding month, the statistics office GUS said. The reading extends the long trend of robust wage growth in Poland owing to the tighten- ing of the country’s labour market.
Czech inflation accelerated to 2.7% year-on-year in February, up by
0.2% compared to January, influenced mainly by increases in y/y price levels of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, according to the Czech Statistics Office data.
Only 2% of women in Czechia earn more than men on average, according to the analysis from the Czech Minis- try of Labour. Women earn on average about one-fifth less than men.
Estonia's producer price index
(PPI) grew 0.6% y/y in February,
data released by Statistics Estonia showed. The headline figure sees
the PPI inflation rate gain 0.3pp com- pared to January, extending the current trend of PPI inflation to 29 months straight.
Hourly labour costs in Latvia grew 13.1% y/y to €8.02 in unadjusted terms in the fourth quarter, the Baltic state’s Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) announced. The growth is 0.7pp below the annual growth rate seen in the pre- ceding quarter but remains robust and is a reflection of the tightening labour market in Latvia.
Southeast Europe
Turkey seems on course for a full- blown recession following last sum- mer’s currency crisis that has sparked economic turmoil and crushed much consumer demand. Calculations from 19 economists polled by Reuters point to Turkey's economy having shrunk by 2.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, dragging full-year growth down to a below-forecast 2.55%.
Potential delay of big infrastructure projects and external factors such
as Brexit could slow down Bulgaria’s economic growth in 2019, the central bank said. Potential introduction of new foreign trade protection measures could also slow down the growth.
Job creation slowed in the Western Balkans, a report from the World Bank and wiiw showed. The region generated around 68,000 new jobs between the second quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of 2018, compared to 231,000 a year earlier. In contrast, GDP growth in accelerated to 3.9% in 2018 from 2.5% in 2017.
Unemployment was named as the deepest fear of young Croatians in a comprehensive study of the status and aspirations of the younger generation, by the Friedrich Ebert Stifung Foun-
dation and the Institute for Social Research. Young people are overwhelm- ingly focussed on socio-economic issues, while they held a deep distrust of politi- cal institutions.
Eurasia
US State Department officials warned that more sanctions targeted at Iran are on the way. The sanctions assault waged by the US on Iran since last year has pushed the country back into reces- sion. Inflation has been sent soaring and the value of the Iranian rial against hard currencies has collapsed.
The IMF expects Armenia's economic growth to slow to 4.5% this year from 5.2% in 2018 because of a weaker global environment and lower copper prices, the fund's representative said. The impoverished South Caucasus country of 3.2mn is strongly dependent on aid and investment from strategic ally Russia.
Uzbekistan’s foreign trade amounted to $6.39bn in January – February, up by 25.4% y/y, according to official data published by the country ’s statistics office. Uzbek exports stood at $3.03bn, up by 20.4% y/y, while imports rose by 30.3% y/y to a similar figure of $3.35bn when rounded off.
Georgia's central bank cut its bench- mark interest rate, the refinancing rate, to 6.5% from 6.75%, citing forecasting that suggested annual inflation would stay close to its 3% target this year.
The regulator also hiked the required reserves for forex liabilities.
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