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The Regions This Week
October 19, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Central Europe
Lithuania will hold a referendum on dual citi- zenship at the same time as the presidential and European Parliament elections in May 2019. MPs voted in favour of the plan following pressure from citizens in the country of 2.85mn that has a very high emigration rate.
The Hungarian parliament passed a resolution condemning the Sargentini report that was ap- proved by the European Parliament last month. It called for the launch of an Article 7 procedure citing the “existence of a clear risk of a serious breach by Hungary of the values on which the Union is founded”.
Latvia began investigating a number of local banks for possible servicing of a Turkish com- pany SIA Falcon Group, which the US authorities sanctioned for attempts to supply North Korea with weapons and luxury goods. It is not clear how many or which banks exactly serviced SIA Falcon Group, which had an office in Riga.
Czech President Milos Zeman suggested scrap- ping the Senate in an interview with the Czech Radio. The president also laid into so-called “solar barons” whom he described as “economic f***ers”, prompting a number of complaints to the Radio and Television Broadcasting Council over his language.
Poland’s upcoming local election will test the strength of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. Poles will vote October 21 to decide who will be in charge of their districts, towns, and regions in the next four years, but the vote is also seen as a test of sentiment ahead of the 2019 general election.
Hungary’s central bank kept the key rate on hold
at 0.90% at its monthly policy meeting. The bank’s monetary council also left the O/N central bank deposit rate at -0.15% and the O/N collateralised loan rate at 0.90%.
Carmaker Magna International opened its fifth plant in the Czech Republic to support its new BMW Group business. The plant plans to produce more than 360,000 seating systems in various configurations for BMW models per year.
Gross wages in the Polish corporate sector grew 6.7% y/y in October, 0.1pp below the annual read- ing in the preceding month, the statistics office GUS said. The reading is below market consensus that expected growth of 7.1% y/y but nonethe- less extends the long trend of robust wage growth in Poland that owes to the tightening of the coun- try’s labour market.
The grain harvest in the Czech Republic is expected to be 7.9% lower y/y coming in at 6.861mn tonnes, the statistics office reported. The lower harvest will fuel inflation as it is expected to push food prices up, particularly for bakery prod- ucts, which are already under upward pressure from increased labour and energy costs.
The owner of Hungary’s second-largest beer maker, Borsodi, US-Canadian brewer Molson Coors, is investing €12mn at its production plant in Hungary. Molson Coors is turning the brew- ery into a regional centre, raising capacity to an annual 2.5mn hectolitres from 1.8mn at present, which equals 500mn pints of beer.
The Slovak government approved the draft state budget for the next three years, with the public finance deficit at 0.1% of GDP next year, a bal- anced budget in 2020 and a surplus in 2021. The Ministry of Finance promised both the debt and deficit will fall in the next two years.
Lithuania’s current account showed a surplus of €136.8mn in August, the Bank of Lithuania re- ported. The current account surplus grew 21.7% m/m and 34.8% y/y. In monthly terms, growth owed primarily to the improved balance on the secondary income account.