Growth still slowing

The raft of Q4 GDP data released over the past month showed that growth slowed pretty much everywhere in Emerging Europe. The Czech Republic became the first economy in the region to fall back into a recession while even Poland saw a marked slowdown. Since then, tentative signs of stabilisation in the euro-zone, notably in Germany, have raised hopes that the worst is now over for the region. But we would not get carried away just yet. We still fear that the euro-zone is heading for a deep recession – if we are right, then 2012 will be a difficult year for Emerging Europe.