In an era where a global financial crisis has been caused not by developments in Russia, South-East Asia or Argentina, but by banking insolvency in the United States and sovereign default risks in a eurozone member state, namely Greece, our panel of senior commentators discusses what it means to be an ‘emerging market’. Justin Patrie, [Read more...]

 

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For all the doom and gloom surrounding European markets on the back of the Greek sovereign crisis and concomitant sell-off in euro and sterling, emerging market currencies in the region still look bid. Traditionally, when EUR/US$ has weakened, so too have benchmark central European cross rates such as PLN/EUR and CZK/EUR. However, this correlation has [Read more...]

On Monday, November 9, much of Europe will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the catalyst it provided for the collapse of Communism on the continent. BMI’s Justin Patrie explains the significance of this event for Emerging Europe, and what the outlook is for the next 20 years [Read more...]

 

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Moldova is in the midst of yet another political crisis. By this, I actually mean that the country has entered a new phase of a pre-existing crisis – a crisis that yields valuable lessons on the broader significance of political institutions to a country’s risk profile. Fortunately, this new scene in the ongoing drama has [Read more...]

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been trouble in Moldova and Georgia of late. The reason that both small ex-Soviet states have erupted onto your TV screens (and Risk Watchdog) this week is that both have seen crowds of 10,000+ angry citizens take to the streets of their respective capital cities to protest against their [Read more...]

Business Monitor’s recent downward revision of its 2009 Hungarian economic growth forecast to -6.4% well reflects my view that the systemic crisis risks I have been highlighting since Q308 have morphed into the region’s core scenario. While small economies like the Baltics and frontier markets such as Ukraine have long been forecast to contract in [Read more...]

As the macroeconomic and financial market maelstrom continues to engulf the Emerging Europe region, one of the questions I’m asked most is the prospects for sovereign defaults in 2009. With benchmark government bonds and CDS spreads across the region continuing to widen towards record levels, the fears of the dreaded ‘D’ word seem to increase [Read more...]