I am becoming increasingly concerned about the rising threat of strikes and demonstrations in Emerging Europe. Business Monitor International (BMI) has long raised a number of structural problems in the region – endemic corruption, nepotism and flawed election procedures. However, with unemployment set to rise, the erosion of real wealth and governments’ perceived mismanagement of… [Read more]

This Halloween has proven particularly ghoulish for Serbian borrowers. On October 31, the National Bank of Serbia became the second European central bank in as many weeks to hike rates sharply, raising its policy rate by 200bps to bring it to 17.75%. This followed the National Bank of Hungary’s October 22 decision to hike its… [Read more]

Over the past several months, there has been a clear disconnect between credit default swap (CDS) markets and sovereign ratings in the emerging Europe region. While CDS spreads across the board have spiked to record highs, in some cases beyond 1,000 basis points (Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia), the downgrades from the ratings agencies have been… [Read more]

I have just come back from an extensive trip around emerging Europe, taking in Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria. Over the next few days I will write up some of my thoughts on these countries. Today, I will be starting with Romania. I last visited Bucharest in 2003 for a conference, and have somehow… [Read more]