Summary Despite near stagnation in the euro area and the negative impact of the Ukraine crisis, in most of the NMS economies and some of the Western Balkan countries growth prospects are viewed as positive. While the NMS economies will preserve their positive growth differential vis-à-vis the...

The report analyses recent economic developments and short- and medium-term development prospects, covering the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe including Turkey, together with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and China. Separate chapters present an overview of...

After a period of exceptionally high growth in the whole region of Central, East and Southeast Europe in the past two years, there has been some slowdown in GDP growth. Nevertheless growth remains largely robust. In particular the new member states of the EU (NMS) appear to be largely decoupled...

For Albania, we expect GDP growth of 1.9% in 2011 and 2.2% in 2012 respectively and a stronger increase to 2.6% in 2013 and 3.4% in 2014, the latter due to the election cycle and induced populist government spending. The assumption is that the government has no problems financing fiscal...

In Croatia, GDP growth will decline again in 2012 and should finally rebound only in 2013, provided external demand and competitiveness strengthen. The poor situation on the labour market will continue to be a major obstacle to a recovery in household consumption. The burdens associated with...

Given fiscal consolidation and the expected growth slowdown in Slovenia’s most important EU trading partners, GDP will decline by 1% in 2012. A rebound of economic activity is expected only in 2013 since public investment will need time to recover and deleveraging of the enterprise sector is...

The general deterioration of conditions in the euro area (even in Germany) in the second half of 2011 has already affected the performance and prospects in most new member states. But so far Poland has kept its growth momentum. Growth in 2012 is likely to be satisfactory (though of course lower...

The Hungarian economy will slide into recession this year due to the austerity measures required to reduce the fiscal deficit to below 3% of the GDP. Further, but smaller consolidation measures will be necessary in 2013 as well. An agreement with the IMF and the EU may help partially restore...

In Romania, a bumper harvest boosted GDP by 2.5% in 2011, a one-time effect that is due to vanish in 2012. At best 1% growth can be expected, driven by private consumption. A major factor of the economic slowdown is the expected stop in credit expansion. The fiscal situation is not expected to...

The growth of Turkey's economy was over 10% year-on-year in some quarters of the period 2010-2011. It may have decelerated recently, but it is not yet certain that this will lead to a more or less soft type of ‘landing’; a swift resumption of growth is feasible. In 2011, thanks to high real...