Slovak Quarterly GDP Growth Revised

The revision based on a new methodology (chain-linking) did not bring any significant interpretational differences.

Reuters Central European Investment Summit

I am aware that this notice comes a bit late, but still.
The summit takes place on October 15-17 (Monday to Wednesday) in Vienna, Austria. If you can't attend, check out at least the issues that are going to be discussed.

DEBlog - discussing pension system

As announced, three Slovak economists have started a discussion about Slovak pension reform. The discussion is in Slovak. However, we might translate some important outputs and hopefully publish them here.

Slovak 2009 Euro Adoption in Doubts

The planned public finance deficit of 2.94% of GDP this year, which just barely meets the 3.0% Maastricht criterion for euro adoption, might increase by 0.2-0.3 pp as Eurostat suggested including the national highway company and public media into the public finance balance sheet. The Ministry of Finance said these amounts are still manageable in the light of keeping the deficit under 3.0% in 2007, since the state revenues and expenditures after nine months suggest an actual deficit of about 2.7% of GDP by the end of the year. However, health care, railways and public-private partnership (PPP) projects in highway construction remain a potential danger if included into the official public finance numbers. A final say by the Eurostat on the deficit accounting is expected soon. A survey among analysts on the probability of euro adoption reflected the arisen worries and fell by 7 pp to its lowest level since December last year (from 77% in August to 70% in September).

On Convergence Within the EU

An article by Philippe Maystadt, president of the European Investment Bank, for the Project Syndicate.

Slovak Business Environment Worsens

A September report of ING Slovakia includes this graph and comment on the PAS business environment index: "The strong anti-reform pre-election rhetoric has not been followed up with the reversal of the previous government's reforms. Facing a possible currency crisis after the elections, the new government recommitted itself to the original euro adoption schedule. However, financial markets had assumed the anti-reform stance would not be met with action and the government would keep the status-quo in reforms.
Nevertheless, as time goes by, the government's policy is taking a negative toll on the business environment. And there is no guarantee that this process will not deteriorate further after 2009 euro entry."

New Statistics on GDP per capita in PPS

	% of EU-27	Change
	(2007)	since 2003
Austria	129.4	+0.3
Czech Republic	81.5	+7.7
Slovakia	66.6	+11.3
Hungary	65.7	+2.1
Poland	55.1	+6.0

Source: Eurostat: GDP per capita in PPS

Pension Economics Soon to be Spoken @ eTREND.sk

Juraj Draxler (CEPS Reviser Reseach Fellow), Martin Filko (PhD student at Erasmus University Rotterdam), and Martin Chren (director of F. A. Hayek Foundation Bratislava) will soon commence the Slovak "Economics Forum" with an online debate à la Richard Thaler and Mario Rizzo on the topic of pension economics. Next Monday at the economic weekly TREND's portal.

10 Largest Non-financial CEE Companies

{Rank, Company Name, Country, Sales in 2006, sector}

1. PKN Orlen, Poland, 13.6 bln. EUR, oil processing
2. MOL, Hungary, 11.4 bln. EUR, oil processing
3. Skoda Auto, Czech Republic, 7.4 bln. EUR, automotive
4. Naftogaz Ukrajiny, Ukraine, 6.1 bln. EUR, energy
5. CEZ, Czech Republic, 5.8 bln. EUR, energy
6. Volkswagen Slovakia, Slovakia, 5.2 bln. EUR, automotive
7. Audi Hungaria, Hungary, 4.9 bln. EUR, automotive
8. Nokia, Hungary, 4.8 bln. EUR, technology
9. Telekomunikacja Polska, 4.8 bln. EUR, telecommunications
10. Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne, 4.0 bln. EUR, energy

Source: Deloitte - Central Europe Top 500

A Small Open Economy

Slovakia was the 11th most trade-open economy in the world according World Bank's 2005 available data, with exports and imports valued together at 161.7% of the country's GDP. Only Hong Kong, Malaysia and Belgium were both more populous and more economically open. Other more open countries included mini-states such as Luxembourg, Seychelles or Guyana. According to the most recent numbers (1st half of 2007), the country's exports amounted to 89.0% of GDP, imports 89.6% of GDP. The total trade openness was thus 178.6% of GDP.