Kazakhstan’s economy exhibited outstanding real growth of 7.5% in 2011. We forecast that strong GDP growth of 5-6% in real terms will continue in 2012-2014. The oil sector will remain the backbone of the economy, accounting for the bulk of its exports and FDI. Investment growth is forecasted...

In Lithuania, the slowdown of growth in exports and corporate investments that could be observed towards the end of 2011 will continue throughout 2012. In spite of parliamentary elections to be held in October 2012, the government reinforced austerity measures in order to reduce the budget...

The downturn of the European trade cycle leads to lowered growth prospects also for Latvia in 2012. The corporate and the household sector will continue to deleverage quite strongly, thus the growth in investments and household consumption will decline as well. Eager to join the eurozone in...

Once the model economy of transition, Hungary has been struggling with much higher public and private debt and a significantly worse growth performance than its peers in the region. A deteriorating exchange rate, increasing yields on government securities and soaring CDS spreads have recently...

In the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ several observers compared the changes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the transition of the former communist countries in Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) to parliamentary democracy and market economy starting two decades ago. Relying...

The present study examines the economic development of the NUTS-2 level regions in the EU-27 from 1995 to 2003. It focuses on income and employment developments in the regions of the new EU Member States (NMS) and compares the results to the developments in the regions of Northern as well as...

Summary · Grouping the regions of the EU-15 and the new member states (NMS, including Bulgaria and Romania) into five clusters according to the relative importance of broad sectors of activity reveals marked differences in the regional economic structure and development. · In capital cities...

For about a decade, GDP growth in Central European countries has been consistently faster than in the 'old' EU-15. As a first approximation, one can expect a growth differential of about 2 percentage points to prevail also in the future. This practical rule-of-thumb is broadly consistent with...

In an international comparison, CEECs show a relatively strong economic growth performance coming close to that of the first and second tier of Asian Tiger countries over the past decade, which emerge as the best growth performers (setting aside China). In recent years the CEECs' dynamic growth...

After the Visegrad countries’ accession to the EU in 2004, one of the most remarkable developments was the sudden upturn in their mutual trade. In 2007 the value of aggregate intra-Visegrad trade was two and a half times higher than in 2003. The rate of growth in these countries’ trade with...