CEE need until 2013 to recover

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the biggest professional services firms of the world, has done a study about the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

The economy of the CEE-region flourished during 5years till 2008, when it reached 155 billion dollar. But then slumped with more than 50 per cent to 77 billon dollar in 2009, due to the credit crunch, the recession and a rise of the labour costs, because of the period of boom until 2008. But the consequences weren’t the same for the whole CEE.

On the one hand, in countries like Estonia, Latvia, Russia and Lithuania, the FDI dropped twenty till seventy per cent. Czech and Bulgaria weakened with only 5 per cent.

On the other hand, Poland became a little stronger in 2009. Outstanding was Slovakia, with an astonishing 55 per cent jump, as a result of a unique deposit of 2.3 billion dollar.

I think the damage of the credit crunch and recession was a tough punch for this region. Because, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has known a steady growth. Some countries like Czech, Poland and Hungary were very interesting for foreign investors.

The PwC figured out that the CEE-region will need time until 2013 to recover to its level of 2008. I suppose that this news is not as bad as it looks, because specialists expect that other countries like Belgium and the Netherlands will also need time until 2013 to recover from the economical crises.

source:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d92aaecc-2c69-11df-be45-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

De Meyer Benny, 2FV4