Trend towards bigger deals and more fund investment continues, as deal value rises by half to give best Q1 since 2013.
But pandemic has delayed restart of convergence with Western Europe until 2023.
Slovak tests found that the vaccine shipment differed from the doses sent for testing to the EMA and to The Lancet.
A third wave of the coronavirus pandemic is sweeping through Emerging Europe. While Russia is expecting to reach herd immunity in the next two months, most other countries of the region have only just started their mass immunisation programmes.
Getting an IKEA store is a good guide to how developed a country is. And the Swedish furniture store has an uncanny knack for opening their yellow and blue stores exactly at the beginning of a country's rapid growth phase.
Finance Minister Eduard Heger will become the new prime minister, while outgoing premier Igor Matovic will take his post.
So far four ministers have resigned in the rolling cabinet crisis and parliament has been adjourned amid the growing chaos.
SaS leader Richard Sulik says Prime Minister Igor Matovic must now fulfil his pledge to quit, but the two rivals still disagree about the balance of ministers in the cabinet.
The coalition infighting has demonstrated the weakness of the right and is a warning lesson for opposition parties in neighbouring countries.
The moderate GDP setbacks in 2020 imply that for some CEE countries there will not be such drastic recovery and rebound effects in 2021 as in hard-hit countries in Western Europe.
Czech-owned consumer lending group adapts to COVID-19 by shifting to smaller loans and pushing digitilisation.
With economies primed to rebound as pandemic restrictions are loosened, consumer prices could rise even further, reawakening an issue that has long been ignored.
Political crisis follows prime minister's procurement of Russian Sputnik V vaccine despite objections from coalition partners.
Prime Minister Igor Matovic has come under fire for his erratic style of leadership, which has become particularly evident during the government's poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visegrad Four break ranks with the EU again and reach deals to buy unapproved Russian and Chinese vaccines.
Slovak procurement is another propaganda coup for the Kremlin and could further destabilise the country's rocky four-party coalition.
Austrian lender provisions for COVID-19 downturn but says it does not expect a significant increase in hard defaults after the expiration of debt moratoria in the region.
Opposition calls for cabinet to resign, amid criticism of delays in imposing lockdown and poor communication with public.
Unemployment growth has been modest and a return to tight labour markets is expected as economies recover from the coronacrisis.
COVID-19 lockdowns hit income as Raiffeisen raises provisioning ahead of pandemic's after effects.