Page 6 - bne_newspaper_October_13_2017

The Regions This Week
October 13, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Central Europe
South Korea’s LG Chem plans to open a lithium- ion battery factory in Poland in 2017. The factory — Europe’s largest — will supply the growing electric car manufacturing industry and reduce reliance on imports from China and South Korea.”
Hungary will not support any sanctions that the European Union might impose on Poland, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Polish media. The right-wing populist governments in Budapest and Warsaw are allies in standing up to the EU over a number of issues, such as containing the migration crisis by providing for migrants arriving in southern Europe.
Lithuania is the only EU member state where female employees were more likely to be sent on job-related training by their employer than their male colleagues. A survey by The Knowledge Academy found that in general the gender disparity when it comes to training male versus female staff is smaller in CEE countries than the EU average.
Slovakia is to hike its minimum wage from €2.50/hour to €2.76/hour under plans approved by the cabinet. Slovak unemployment is currently very low at 6.54%, often leaving employers searching for enough workers from among the ‘hardcore’ jobless.
Poland will end dubious so-called “restitutions” of pre-war property in line with a new law proposed by the country’s justice ministry. Warsaw and some other Polish cities have seen pre-war land plots and buildings – nationalised by the communists in the late 1940s – subject to restitution decisions resting on forged documents or suspiciously favourable court orders.
GDP growth will accelerate in all three Baltic states this year in comparison to the subdued
growth experienced in 2016, the IMF said.Lithu- ania's economy is expected to grow 3.5% this year. Latvia is seen as managing growth of 3.8%, while Estonia – the regional laggard for the past two years – is likely to post economic expansion of 4%.
Czech industrial production again defied expectations in August, moving up 5.8%
y/y, faster than July’s 3.3% rise and the 4.2% anticipated by analysts, Czech Statistical Office data showed. The downside of the picture for Czech industry is that the pace of job creation in September eased to the weakest rate seen since last October.
The Polish government sacked the head of
the supervisory board of state-controlled chemicals giant Azoty. The dismissal is linked to a corruption case revealed by the Polish anti- corruption police, CBA.
Hungary’s tourism industry closed a strong summer season with the number of nights spent by international tourists rising 3.8% in August and hotel room revenues in Budapest up 21% y/y. The figures came on back of high base figure, as the sector had its best year ever in 2016, becoming one of the fastest growing tourism markets in Europe.
Slovakia posted an August trade deficit of €50.7mn following on from July’s revised surplus of €66.9mn. Exports grew 5.9% y/y in August while imports increased by 10.5% y/y.
Polish demand for mortgage loans grew 3.1% y/y in September, Credit Information Bureau (BIK) reported. Faltering as it is, the growth remains driven by the good situation of the Polish economy and the booming labour market on which the shortage of employees is driving wages up.