• Consumer prices index increased by 1.0% in January. Year-on-year inflation declined to 1.3% from December’s 1.7%. Regulated prices and taxes created two thirds of January inflation. The rest was provided by food.
• Industrial production in last year’s December increased by 3% y/y. For the year 2006 it increased by 9.7%, while in 2005 it was 6.7%. Last year’s czech industry output was supported by combination of production capacity increases and boom in EU countries, where are heading most of industrial exports.
• Hungary’s economy growth rate decelerated in the 4Q06 to 3.2% after 3.8% growth in the 3Q06. In 2006 GDP increased by 3.9% after 4.2% in 2005.
• Consumer prices in Hungary increased in January by 1.2% and year-on-year inflation soared from 6.5% to 7.8%, which is the highest level for the last five years.
• Last year’s US foreign trade deficit increased to a record USD 763.6bn. Exports increased by 12.8% while imports by 10.4%.
• Investors’ confidence in german economy index (ZEW) increased in February to 2.9 from 3.6 in January.