Analyse af udvikling i Østeuropa fra SEB:
Gradual economic recovery will continue in Poland/Central Europe and the Baltic countries in 2015-2016 despite the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is making Russia stagnate and Ukraine’s GDP plunge this year. But growth in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania will be moderate. In Estonia – also squeezed by Finland’s stagnation – it will remain weak. Shortterm growth will also be squeezed by a temporary slump in Germany and the euro zone. We expect zero euro zone growth in the second half of 2014, partly due to uncertainty about the Ukraine crisis. Growing private consumption and a resumed German/euro zone upturn in 2015 will offset lost exports to Russia and Ukraine as well as plummeting investments due to geopolitical worries. Households are benefiting from continued good real incomes (especially in the Baltics) and low interest rates: both largely due to continued very low inflation. Direct trade ties between conflict-hit countries and individual Central and Eastern European countries are also relatively small, except for the Baltics and some other former Soviet republics. We expect the Russia-Ukraine conflict to be long-lasting. Our growth forecasts assume that the conflict will not escalate militarily, no serious disruptions to Russian energy deliveries to Europe will occur and trade sanctions between the West and Russia will not worsen. We assume that the current sanctions – which we believe will have a relatively small direct impact – will remain in place during most of 2015. Here are our GDP forecasts for the six countries that Eastern European Outlook covers. SEB’s forecasts for 2015 are generally below consensus.
