Page 74 - bneMag February 2021_20210202

74 I New Europe in Numbers bne February 2021
Ukraine bank sector profit (monthly UAH mn)
Ukraine's banking sector ends 2020 with best monthly profits in four years
Ukraine’s banking sector remained impressively healthy throughout 2020 and finished the year on a high. The banking sector posted
a sectorial profit of UAH43,365mn ($1.5bn), which was still down on the 2019 result, but on a monthly basis the banking sector recorded
its highest month-on-month profit in four years of UAH6,302 ($223mn), according to National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
The banking sector has benefited from the clean-up work carried out by the previous management under first former NBU governor Valeriya Gontareva, who took over the job in 2014 and then her successor Yakiv Smolii, who quit last year.
Romania’s stock exchange close to pre-crisis peak after strong rally
The Bucharest Stock Exchange’s (BVB’s) blue-chip index, BET, passed 10,000 points after a 1.56% advance on January 8. Since the end of 2020, BET has risen by over 3.5%.
The index is climbing up toward the pre-crisis high of just over 10,200 points reached in January and February 2020. Thus, the BET has topped 10,000 points again before the upward trend at the beginning of last year was abruptly interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The BET-TR total return index is already at an all-time high of 17,080 points.
Russia’s Watcom shopping index recovers some ground in December, still down by half on previous year
Russia’s Watcom shopping index, which measures foot traffic in Moscow’s major shopping malls in real time, recovered some of the ground lost after the second wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic emerged in the autumn, but still finished the year well down on the previous year.
Foot traffic in the Russian capital’s major malls bounced back in the summer after the first lockdown was ended, recovering all the ground lost in the crisis. However, as the second wave gathered pace in September the index began to fall again. Tthe drop was limited as the authorities decided to forego a second lockdown because the damage it was doing to the economy.
Zagreb Stock Exchange's Crobex10 index at highest level since March 5
The main indices of the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) rallied on January 5, with the Crobex10 index hitting its highest level since March 5.
On January 5 (the last trading day before the Three Kings public holiday on January 6), the main Crobex index rose by 1.25% to 1,765.80 points, while the Crobex10, which tracks the top 10 Crobex index companies
by free float, market capitalisation and turnover, was up by 1.26% at 1,104.95 points.
Source: NBU
Russia Watcom shopping index (Moscow)
Source: Watcom
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