Slump in regional growth may be bottoming out

The raft of preliminary GDP data released earlier this month provided some hope that the region’s slowdown bottomed out in the first quarter of the year. Nonetheless, growth is extremely weak, at just under 1% y/y, and performances across Emerging Europe are uneven. It looks like consumer spending is making a tentative recovery across the region, supported by falling inflation. A rebound in the agricultural sector and a turn in the inventory cycle may also have helped. But the ongoing recession in the euro-zone continues to weigh on exports.