EBRD Annual Meetings Summary
Overview:
The main theme of the EBRD Annual Meetings was a seeming disconnect between financial market stabilisation in both Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union and yet the extremely poor economic data currently being recorded across the region. Most currencies have stabilised and equity markets recovered from their very weak performances in Q42008 and Q12009. At the same time, economic data is showing severe contractions continuing in the majority of these countries. Several countries are, indeed, recording GDP contractions of over 10% y-o-y. While financial markets try, of course, to look beyond current economic numbers a number of participants in the conference worried that sentiment might deteriorate once again as recession starts to raise the level of non-performing loans and ignite social tensions.