Q4 GDP data, released over the past month, have painted rather a mixed picture. The good news is that a number of countries, notably Russia and Poland, appear to have grown on a quarterly basis. But in Russia’s case, we suspect that this owed more to a turn in the inventory cycle and a huge fiscal stimulus rather than a sustained pick-up in activity. Worse still, a host of countries contracted on a quarterly basis once again. While this did not come as a huge surprise in Hungary and the Balkans, given the scale of fiscal tightening that is now underway, the unexpected fall in the Czech Republic underlines the fact that the recovery anywhere in the region is likely to be bumpy.
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