ZEW-Erste Group Bank Sentiment Indicator for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) - Economic Expectations for Central and Eastern Europe Improve

The ZEW- Erste Group Bank CEE indicator rises by 12.1 points reaching 31.4 points in November. Thus, the economic expectations on a six months time horizon for the Central and Eastern Europe region including Turkey (CEE-region) improve significantly in the current survey in comparison to the previous month. The economic sentiment indicators for the CEE region are surveyed monthly together with other financial market data by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, with the support of the Erste Group Bank, Vienna.

The expectations of the surveyed financial market experts regarding the economic outlook within the next six months in the Eurozone also improve in November compared to the expectations in October. However, the increase of the indicator for the Eurozone by 3.4 points to 5.5 points is clearly smaller than for the CEE-region.

The assessment of the current economic situation in the CEE region increases considerably in November by 13.5 points. The respective indicator exhibits a value of 16.7 points. In contrast to this evaluation, the financial market experts assess the current economic situation in the Eurozone more sceptical. The indicator which reflects the assessment of the current business cycle in the Eurozone decreases by 6.4 points to minus 21.5 points.

Further information concerning additional indicators for the CEE region, the Eurozone, the individual analysed CEE countries and Austria are included in the table at the end of the press release. All the answers of the survey participants are included into the calculation of the indicators for the CEE region, the Eurozone and Turkey. The answers of the Turkish participants are not considered for the calculation of the indicators for the individual CEE countries and for the indicator for Austria as they would lead to a significant bias of the results due to the high share of Turkish participants in the survey.

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 goal 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 of 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 CEE country and for Austria in detail.

For further information please contact:

Dr. Mariela Borell, Phone: +49 (0)621/1235-144, E-mail: borell@zew.de