EBRD Blog

Mongolian microfinance: Some first insights from a randomised field experiment

Ralph De Haas, Senior Economist — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:46:42 +0000

In Mongolia, as in numerous other countries, microfinance has attracted attention as a potentially powerful tool to generate pro-poor growth. Many Mongolians live in poverty and income disparities between urban and rural areas are significant. The rural economy remains vulnerable to variations in weather conditions; droughts and harsh winters often lead to large-scale livestock deaths, also this year. As a result, there is wide-spread migration from the countryside to urban…

Let’s Stick Together: Pros and Cons of the Tripartite Customs Union in the CIS

Ralph De Haas, Senior Economist — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:52:23 +0000

Authors: Ralph De Haas, Alex Plekhanov
As of January 2010, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus apply a common external customs tariff (CET) to imports from third countries. The CET is mainly based on the Russian duties that prevailed until last year. Since these were the highest among the three countries (Figure 1) there have been significant duty hikes in Belarus and Kazakhstan. For example, in Belarus the import duty on a

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Kazakhstan’s Missing Middle

Ralph De Haas, Senior Economist — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:58:52 +0000

By Ralph De Haas and Asel Isakova

Why do private equity funds have difficulties with finding interesting mid-sized investment opportunities in Kazakhstan? And why does economic diversification remain such an elusive policy goal for the Kazakh government?

These are complex questions to which the table below may provide a partial answer. It shows the contribution of small firms (less than 50 employees), medium-sized firms (50-250 employees), and large firms (>250 employees)…

Transport: staying on track

Sue Barrett, EBRD Transport team Director — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:07:25 +0000

This year has been an exceptional one and the EBRD’s Transport team has played a big part in the Bank’s crisis response. Nearly doubling last year’s business volume, we’ve responded flexibly to client refinancing needs and ensured priority investments remain on track. Many smaller transport projects – particularly private sector investments in ports – have struggled to find funding since the start of the crisis and have turned to the

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EBRD launches Transition Report 2009

James Bregman, Web Manager — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:52:56 +0000

Today the EBRD published its annual Transition Report, which covers the past year’s developments in countries of the EBRD region and analyses their macroeconomic performance and transition to market economies.

The question this year has been whether that transition is itself in crisis. The answer is “no”, according to Chief Economist Erik Berglof, who launched the report. “The fundamental growth model for the region remains intact. However,

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Press freedom slides in eastern Europe

Jane Ross, Head of Publications and Web — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:04:47 +0000

Press freedom has declined over the past year in the majority of countries where the EBRD invests, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB). The media monitor’s annual Press Freedom Index, published last week, also showed that standards had slipped generally in many European countries which should, it claimed, be setting an example for newer democracies.

Of the EBRD’s 29 countries of operations, only nine showed…

The road to a fragile recovery

Anthony Williams, Head of Media Relations — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:04:33 +0000

The EBRD has released its latest economic forecasts. Signs of positive growth in the third quarter suggest the recession is bottoming out in much of the EBRD region - but any upturn in 2010 is likely to be fragile and patchy.

At the start of this year, the global economic crisis was hitting central and eastern Europe with unimaginable force. Any illusion that this region was somehow immune from the “western”…

Born in ‘89? Tell us your story

Lawrence Sherwin, Deputy Director of Communications — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:54:17 +0000

In just a few weeks’ time, commemorations in the German capital will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. As the world reflects on the events of November 1989 that paved the way for a new era in eastern Europe, the EBRD is looking to hear the stories of people from former communist states who were born during that momentous year.

If you are a citizen…

Stress testing of banks and policy implications

Piroska M. Nagy, Senior Adviser to the Chief Economist — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:51:38 +0000

Recent stress tests, while admittedly not perfect, have proven useful to bring a degree of clarity over banks’ portfolio quality. When backed by credible financing plans, the tests have helped confidence in battered banking sectors. In Europe two major regional exercises are under way: a CEBS-coordinated and nationally-implemented testing of the largest EU-based bank groups, and a regional exercise by the IMF, both with expected results around September.

Peer pressure, positive…

A look at non-performing loans: the boomerang effect

Ralph De Haas, Senior Economist — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:29:02 +0000

Authors: Ralph De Haas and Stephan Knobloch , 16 July 2009.

When the global financial crisis hit the transition region, worries among policy makers centred on the local banking systems and the potential for financial contagion from west to east. And when unemployment started to rise and output declined sharply as of Q4 2008, the attention shifted towards the real-economic impact of the crisis.

Now, notwithstanding more frequent discussions about green shoots…