ZEW-Erste Group Bank Economic Sentiment Indicator for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) - Economic Expectations for the CEE Region Brighten Up

The ZEW-Erste Group Bank Economic Sentiment Indicator for Central and Eastern Europe including Turkey (CEE) has increased by 13.0 points in October 2011 for the first time in the last five months. The indicator has climbed up to the minus 25.0 points mark. Economic expectations for the eurozone have also increased by 18.3 points to a level of minus 49.1 points. The economic sentiment indicator for the CEE region and further financial market data have been surveyed monthly by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, with the support of Erste Group Bank, Vienna, since 2007.

Increasing optimism for the CEE region is mainly due to an improvement of the experts’ economic sentiments for Poland and Turkey. The indicators reflecting the economic expectations for Poland and Turkey have climbed by 11.8 points and 16.0 points respectively in this months’ survey. Rising industrial production figures in both countries may have brightened up experts’ expectations. Furthermore the rising optimism for Poland indicates a positive assessment of the Polish Parliament election results this month.

The assessments of the current economic situation in the CEE region have slightly decreased by 1.5 points to the 5.7 points mark in October. The evaluation of the current economic situation in the eurozone has worsened by 7.6 points to a level of minus 57.7 points. This is the sixth consecutive decline of the indicator.

Survey Procedure and Methodology

The Financial Market Survey CEE is a survey carried out among financial market experts by the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim (ZEW) and the Erste Group Bank AG, Vienna. The target of this survey is to develop indicators describing the economic conditions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as well as in Austria. The CEE region observed in the survey consists of Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and since October 2010 Turkey.

The financial experts are questioned on their evaluations of the current business situation, the medium-term prospects of the respective economies and their expectations as to the development of the inflation rate, the short- and long-term interest rates, the exchange rates and stock prices on a six month time horizon. The analysts’ assessments reflect the qualitative direction of the estimated changes. The monthly ‘Financial Market Report CEE’ contains the results for every Central and Eastern European country in detail.

For further information please contact

Zwetelina Iliewa, Phone +49 621/1235-346, E-mail iliewa@zew.de