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The Regions This Week
October 20, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Central Europe
Visegrad Four leaders were positive after a dinner with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The dinner on the eve of an EU summit was a bid to appease the eurosceptic quartet and narrow differences on such contested issues as migration and labour and proposed changes to EU rules.
Hungary-based no-frills airline Wizz Air has set up a subsidiary in the UK and is considering acquiring an air operator's certificate (AOC) in preparation for possible negative impacts from Brexit. The Central Europe’s largest discount airline will add 100 jobs in management, pilots and cabin crew roles at its new UK subsidiary at London Luton.
Swedish telco TeliaSonera said it could sell its shares in Latvian telcos Lattelecom and Latvijas Mobilais Telefons if the two are not merged. Latvia has a minority stake in LMT and a 51% stake in Lattelecom, and has been considering selling its shares to Telia Sonera but is wary the Swedes could sell them on, for example to Russia.
Former Estonian Prime Minister Taavi
Roivas stepped down as deputy speaker of
the parliament following press accounts of alleged sexual harassment during a trade mission to Malaysia. The charges mark a new low for Roivas whose Reform Party’s coalition government collapsed in late 2016 and paved the way for the outcast Centre Party to take power
in the Baltic state.
Employee benefits company Edenred bought Slovakia’s third-largest provider of meal vouchers, Vasa Slovensko, becoming the market leader in the country. Edenred has been operating in Slovakia since 1994, and says Vasa will complement Edenred Slovakia in terms of geographical footprint and client segments.
Sole Czech refiner Unipetrol posted a third-
quarter net profit of CZK1.5bn ($68.9m), some 111% up year on year. The company is truly back up on its feet after reconstructing refining and petrochemical installations that suffered explosions.
Hungarian mobile operator Magyar Telekom and network developer Ericsson staged their first demonstration of 5G technology at the Swedish company’s R&D centre in Budapest. The download speed achieved was a staggering 22Gbp/s, which is 20 times faster than what is currently available on the local market.
Poland’s economy will expand 4% in 2017 on the back of robust consumption fuelled by a strong labour market and government child payment scheme, the World Bank said. The forecast is an upward revision by 0.7pp compared to the World Bank’s previous prediction from May.
Hungarian gross wages grew at the fastest pace in more than a decade in August, rising 13.2%
to stand at HUF292,400 (€949). The shortage of labour has been exerting an upward pressure on wages, which remain below the CEE average.
Around 100 illegal advertising hoardings will be removed from the Slovak capital Bratislava, as the city authorities and the Outdoor Advertising Association join forces to tackle the problem. The association has been waging a campaign to rid Slovakia of illegal advertising but it has been a slow process.
Poland's consumer sentiment index dropped
0.4 points to come in at 4.6 in September, falling for a second month straight, data from statistical office GUS showed on October 18. Despite the fall in October, there is little to indicate that consumer confidence is about to embark on a sustained downward path.