18/06/2010 Slovaks spending less, saving more

The financial assets of Slovak households have been increasing in spite of the impacts of the economic crisis. In response to the worsening economic situation, Slovak households tightened their belts last year and started saving more and in the end accumulated more in savings than they had in 2008. So says an analysis prepared by UniCredit Bank, as cited by the SITA newswire.
Ján Tóth, senior economist at UniCredit Bank Slovakia, attributes it to the fact that Slovaks in general do not like to live in debt. “At the moment, households in Slovakia are more cautious in spending and thus they are accumulating savings, even in spite of growing unemployment,” said Tóth. In comparison with many other countries Slovaks have lower debt levels even though they have less in financial assets. Financial obligations of Slovak households reached only 22 percent of GDP last year while the average in western Europe was 59 percent.
The financial wealth of Slovak households reached 59 percent of GDP in 2009. This was the smallest proportion among the Visegrad 4 countries, but analysts say that it is also important to take into consideration the value of non-financial wealth, represented primarily by real estate ownership, and that Slovaks have considerably more wealth accumulated in these kinds of assets.

18/06/2010 Employers in Poland have difficulty finding qualified labor

Polish employers have a harder time filling vacant positions than their counterparts in other European countries, a survey carried out by international recruitment agency Manpower has revealed. Around 51 percent of managers polled in Poland reported having difficulty finding suitable employees.
The report indicated that companies in Poland have the biggest problems when it comes to finding skilled, white-collar workers such as accountants, financial experts and IT specialists. “The problem is that the education sector in Poland is not responding to the needs of the labor market, which has changed. Seven to 10 years ago, most investments in Poland were in the manufacturing sector, whereas today, employers are seeking skilled labor for service centers and BPOs, and this is proving less easy to find,” said Leszek Kurycyn of Manpower Polska.
Mr Kurycyn also said that there were too many humanities graduates in Poland and not enough IT specialists and engineers.

18/06/2010 Hungarian economy: not yet recovering

Economy Minister György Matolcsy is of the view that the "Hungarian sick man is not yet recovering," He stated that "the truth is that all of the country’s macro indicators are deteriorating, the national economy is expected to end up in a state of stagflation this year. For this reason, the most immediate challenge ahead of the new government is to bring Hungary’s economic freefall to a halt".
The next two years will be about structural reform, as part of which Hungary will adopt the region’s most straightforward tax regime, Matolcsy said. The minister admitted that the proposed HUF 200 billion bank tax is a colossal amount, however it is inevitable for Hungary’s fiscal stabilization. Fiscal stabilization is going to help Hungary escape bigger problems as the bank tax and budget cuts will enable the government to lower the budget deficit from 5% to 3.8%.

18/06/2010 ČEZ replaced Škoda Auto at top place of TOP 100 list

On 17 June 2010, the Czech Top 100 association reported that the profits and revenues of the hundred largest companies in the Czech Republic had decreased in 2009 as a consequence of the economic crisis. Their overall profit decreased by 8.5 % from the year before to CZK 194 bln and their revenues by 15 % to CZK 2.07 trillion. The CEZ energy group placed first in the ladder according to the volume of revenues and profits, with the revenues of CZK 196 bln, followed by the Skoda Auto car maker with CZK 187.8 bln and RWE Transgas. Czech Railways was the biggest employer in the country in 2009 with 41,081 employees.

25/05/2010 Banks profits to increase in Poland

Despite the woes of the world economic system, Poland’s banks managed to roll with the punches in 2009 and this year figures suggest that they should even experience some vibrant growth.
A statement by KNF, Poland’s financial regulator, said that Polish banks should see profits increase by almost a third in 2010, owing in large part to a decrease in provisions for bad debts and an increase in interest income and fees.
“As a consequence of improved conditions, the net result (of the banking sector in 2010) will rise by about 30 percent,” said the statement that was released on May 17.

25/05/2010 Hungary needs new growth model for successful euro adoption

"Hungarian version The earlier path of financing growth from foreign borrowing can no longer be sustained in Hungary, the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) said in its Report on the Convergence Process published on Wednesday. Reducing the country’s vulnerability to financial shocks requires a fiscal policy which does not act as a drain on domestic savings and, consequently, savings can be made available to finance the private sector. In other words, the economy will need to rely on a greater proportion of domestic savings to finance economic growth. However, a tight fiscal policy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for this. It will also be indispensable to restructure the government budget, in order to improve the country’s competitiveness, i.e. to create the conditions for sustainable economic growth, the NBH said.

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