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

Economic expectations for Central and Eastern Europe including Turkey (CEE) have declined by 11.2 points in April 2012. Consequently, the ZEW-Erste Group Bank Economic Sentiment Indicator CEE currently manoeuvres at the 5.4 points-mark. This reverses to some extent the indicator's major increase displayed in the previous month (March 2012: up 36.1 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) with the support of Erste Group Bank, Vienna, since 2007.

The assessment of the current economic situation for the CEE region has slightly decreased by 2.9 points to a level of 5.5 points in April.

Economic sentiments for the Eurozone have remained almost unchanged at 6.7 points after a slight increase by 2.1 points. However, experts’ opinions have deteriorated regarding the assessment of the current economic situation for the Eurozone. The respective indicator has decreased by 7.3 points to a value of minus 43.6 points this month.

Information concerning further indicators of the CEE region, the Eurozone, individually analysed CEE countries or Austria can be found in the table at the end of the press release. The answers of all survey participants are taken into account for the calculation of the indicators for the CEE region, the Eurozone and Turkey. The answers of the Turkish survey participants are not taken into account for the calculation of the indicators for the individual CEE countries and Austria as their high participation share in the survey could cause significant biases in the survey results.

For further information please contact

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

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.