Section: Emerging Europe (UK)
ICT Given Huge Boost in Belarus
Slowly but steadily, Belarus continues to liberalise its regulations to attract more foreign investment. The country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, recently signed a decree on the development of the digital economy, thus making Belarus the first world’s jurisdiction with overall legal regulation of businesses based on blockchain...
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih Gets EBRD Boost
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is to provide a loan of up to 350 million US dollars to support the modernisation and environmental upgrade of Ukraine’s largest steel mill, PubJSC ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih. The loan will help finance ongoing investments at the mill, which is owned by global steel maker...
IMF Concludes Latest Moldova Review, Releases New Money
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded its latest review of Moldova on December 20 and immediately made available 22.2 million US dollars as part of the lender’s current three-year funding arrangement. The review was carried out under the terms of its Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility agreements, which total 183.1...
Poland & Ukraine Should Join Outsourcing Forces
Poland and Ukraine, the two largest countries in Emerging Europe, should jointly promote themselves as an outsourcing destination. “They should create an outsourcing hub and complement one another in their offer,” Iwona Chojnowska-Haponik, director of the Foreign Investment Department at the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH), during the...
Mobilising Private Sector Investment in Belarus, Moldova & Ukraine
Having taken over a difficult role in April 2017, Jason Pellmar, head of the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova regional office of the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, talks to Andrew Wrobel about the opportunities offered by the three countries, and some of the challenges he may face. How do you see...
Skiing in Emerging Europe
With the first snows of the winter having already fallen across Emerging Europe, many people’s thoughts would have already turned to winter holidays, and to skiing. While for many the countries of the region are not the first to spring to mind when planning a ski trip, there are in fact a number of very good ski resorts in this part of the...
EBRD Transition Report Highlights Financial Sector Resilience
The EBRD’s latest Transition Report: Sustaining Growth, issued at the end of November, has highlighted a welcome upturn in the pace of reform in emerging economies where the bank invests, four years after reporting that reforms were stalling or even being thrown into reverse. The EBRD also unveiled a new set of investment criteria for its...
Wizz Air in Huge Polish & Ukrainian Expansion
Reflecting customer demand, Wizz Air has announced 15 new Polish and Ukrainian routes, which will connect Katowice with Porto, Munich, Lviv, Kharkiv, Malaga, Faro, Podgorica; Gdansk with Lviv; Warsaw with Podgorica and Poznan with Dortmund from March 2018. “We expect to deliver 30 million passengers in 2018, as Wizz Air currently offers over 550...
European Commission Withholds 600 Million Euros from Ukraine
The European Commission will not transfer the third and last 600 million euro tranche of the current 1.8 billion euro macro-financial assistance programme to Ukraine, approved in 2015. “Four of the measures linked to the third and final tranche of this MFA currently remain outstanding,” a European Commission statement reads. “Against this...
Mixed Results for Emerging Europe in Legatum Prosperity Index
World prosperity increased in 2017 and now sits at its highest level in the last decade, being 2.6 per cent higher than in 2007, according to the 11th edition of the Legatum Prosperity Index. However, the gap between the highest and lowest scores has increased and the spread between nations is growing. Each country has been measured on nine...
