Ukraine Watch: Inflation increased to 12% in 2024

Oleksandr PECHERYTSYN JANUARY 14, 2025 08:00 CET

In December, consumer prices rose by 1.4% mom, exceeding expectations. Annual inflation accelerated to 12.0% in December. Food prices increased by 1.9%, and showed no explosive growth. The NBU might raise its policy rate by 50 basis points to 14% at its next meeting.

Read More

ESG Handbook Corporates AT (EN)

Georg ZACCARIA JANUARY 13, 2025 15:31 CET

ESG is becoming an increasingly important part of corporate reporting as regulations (CSRD, EU taxonomy) tighten again for reports to be published this year. Transparency is the basis for capital market players to decide on respective investment cases and is therefore of great importance. Issuers of ESG debt instruments continue to have a unique selling point within the AT universe, even though many business models and quality of reportings lend themselves as potential issuers. We analyzed AT corporates from an ESG perspective.

Read More

Serbia Watch: Inflation finished 2024 within the target band

Ljiljana GRUBIC JANUARY 13, 2025 13:42 CET

Weaker inflation dynamics in December (+0.1% mom) supported a stable annual inflation print (+4.3% yoy). Goods price (+3.5% yoy) halved their dynamics vs December last year (+8%), whilst services prices kept growing (+6.7% vs 6.4% in Dec 2023), mainly due to wages adjustments.

Read More

Czechia Watch: Inflation Remains on the Edge of CNB's Tolerance Band

Martin KRON JANUARY 13, 2025 13:32 CET

Year-on-year inflation surprisingly remained within the Czech National Bank's (CNB) tolerance band in December, rising from November's 2.8% to the current 3%.

Read More

Serbia Watch: Easing cycle still on hold

Ljiljana GRUBIC JANUARY 10, 2025 13:10 CET

On the first key rate-setting meeting in 2025, the Executive Board of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) decided to remain cautious and keep the rate at 5.75%. Still, high geopolitical risks and global market fragmentation pose inflation risk.

Read More

Ukraine Watch: weekly update – economy in war (week 150)

Oleksandr PECHERYTSYN JANUARY 10, 2025 11:41 CET

On the forty-sixth week of the third year of the war, NBU reported on the renewal of its reserves to a historical maximum. This definitely happened due to the higher than planned inflow of external financial aid. Even though the business sentiment index dropped seasonally in December, the magnitude of decline was milder than in 2023. Ukrstat improved its estimate of GDP growth in 2023, which should marginally lower debt/GDP and budget deficit/GDP ratios. The exchange rate is on a steady growing path at the start of the year backed by seasonal patterns.

Read More

Austria: Political rebalancing, for how long and in the face of headwinds?

Gunter DEUBER JANUARY 10, 2025 06:53 CET

Economic and fiscal policy are currently determining the formation process of Austria's new government. A quick agreement could be possibly reached on those issues now, and even an Excessive Deficit Procedure by the EU could be possibly avoided. However, there are still many stumbling blocks and uncertainties regarding a possible right-wing conservative coalition. The EU and government bonds markets are currently paying less attention to the “perceived government crisis” in Austria, and this state of affairs could well continue.

Read More