The Experts Club think tank has analyzed the state of the French economy and provided its forecasts for the whole of 2025. At the beginning of 2025, the French economy is showing signs of slowing down due to internal and external factors, including the escalation of trade disputes with the United States.
Current economic indicators
According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), France’s GDP grew by 0.1% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous quarter, following a 0.1% decline in the fourth quarter of 2024. This modest growth was mainly driven by inventory accumulation in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agro-industrial sectors, which added 0.5 percentage points to GDP. However, domestic demand remains weak, with consumer spending stagnating and business investment declining by 0.1%. Foreign trade also had a negative impact, reducing growth by 0.4 percentage points due to a 0.7% decline in exports and a 0.4% increase in imports.
Impact of US trade tariffs
The introduction of new tariffs by the administration of US President Donald Trump, including a 25% duty on cars, steel, and aluminum, is putting significant pressure on France’s export-oriented industries. Companies such as Airbus are looking for ways to circumvent these tariffs, for example by delivering aircraft to US airlines via third countries.
The French government has lowered its economic growth forecast for 2025 from 0.9% to 0.7%, citing uncertainty in global trade. The Bank of France has also confirmed this forecast, noting that growth remains positive but is slowing compared to previous years.
Forecast for the end of 2025
Economists expect France’s economic growth to remain weak in the second half of 2025, with a possible improvement in 2026. The main risk factors remain ongoing trade disputes with the US and domestic political uncertainties. However, France is committed to maintaining economic stability through fiscal measures and stimulating domestic demand.
Lviv Locomotive Repair Plant (LLRP), part of Ukrzaliznytsia, plans to repair 17 locomotives in 2025, compared to 16 in 2024, according to information about plans for the current year in the company’s report for the previous year.
According to LLRZ, it also plans to increase the repair of traction motors and their anchors by 30% to 495 units, and auxiliary electric machines by 19.2% (or 30 units) to 186 units.
At the same time, the production plan for the repair of wheel sets is 450 units, compared to 556 units repaired last year.
According to the plant, last year it repaired, in monetary terms, locomotives worth UAH 453.26 million (55% of total sales), wheel sets worth UAH 171.84 million (21%), traction motors worth UAH 99.5 million (12%), and their anchors worth UAH 55.2 million (7%).
In 2024, the plant increased its net profit by 55% compared to 2023, to UAH 24 million, with net income growing by 39% to UAH 827.7 million.
Operating profit increased by 29.8% to UAH 31.3 million, and gross profit by 27.8% to UAH 62.3 million.
“Capital investments in 2024 amounted to UAH 16.522 million. We also saw an increase in EBITDA of UAH 7.9 million, reflecting a trend towards improvement in the company’s financial position compared to last year,” the report says.
At the beginning of this year, the plant employed 846 people (599 of whom were men).
Founded in 1861, LLRZ is now a large Ukrainian enterprise specializing in the repair of electric locomotives, traction motors, and wheel sets.
According to SERBIAN ECONOMIST, on April 24, 2025, Albania reintroduced visa-free travel for Belarusian citizens, allowing them to stay in the country for up to 30 days. This decision cancels the previously introduced visa restrictions and makes Albania accessible again to Belarusian tourists without the need to obtain a visa.
Main conditions for visa-free entry
Validity: the visa-free regime is valid until September 30, 2025.
Maximum length of stay: up to 30 days from the date of entry.
Purpose of travel: tourism and short-term private visits.
Documents: you must have a valid passport that is valid for at least 3 months after the date of departure from Albania.
Earlier, in April 2025, Albania suspended the visa-free regime for Belarusian citizens, requiring them to obtain a visa for entry. However, in light of the current changes, Belarusian citizens can once again visit Albania without a visa, which contributes to the development of tourist and cultural ties between the two countries.
Belgrade. May 5. SERBIAN ECONOMIST
Enefit Industry AS, a subsidiary of the Estonian state-owned energy company Eesti Energia, has announced a tender for the construction of a 100 MW gas-fired combined cycle power plant as part of the Baltic Power Plant complex in Narva. According to Enefit Industry, it intends to use this power plant in the reserve capacity market to balance the power grid.
The company plans to sign a turnkey contract for the construction of the facility. The value of the state contract is estimated at €100 million, and construction is scheduled for completion in 2028.
“The power plant is designed to generate heat and electricity in cogeneration mode and to provide reserve capacity (….) It will operate on gas piston engine technology with a capacity of 4 to 13 MW. It is expected that the plant will run mainly on natural gas or biomethane and should already be capable of using up to 25% hydrogen as fuel,” the statement said.
It is noted that during the gas station’s operating hours, residual heat can be supplied to the Narva heating network.
“The situation on both the frequency markets and the day-ahead electricity market clearly shows that Estonia needs new flexible and dispatchable generation capacity. The advantage of an autonomous gas-fired power plant is its quick start-up, which helps to respond quickly when electricity prices are high,” said Enefit Industry CEO Lauri Karp, quoted in the report.
The preliminary qualification stage of the tender will last until May 29, and Enefit Industry expects to receive preliminary applications by the end of June.
The company emphasizes that the tender is a prerequisite for participation in the procurement of frequency reserve announced by the data transmission system operator Elering.
As reported, the Estonian energy company Eesti Energia has reorganized and spun off its shale extraction, processing, and liquid fuel production businesses into a separate entity, Enefit Industry AS.
“From April 1, the power plants will continue to operate as Enefit Power OU, while the liquid fuel production plants and extraction divisions will operate as Enefit Industry AS,” Eesti Energia said.
All shale-fired thermal power plants within the group perform a reserve function.
PJSC Novokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant (NKMZ, Kramatorsk, Donetsk region) will pay dividends to shareholders totaling UAH 223.314 million in the period from May 29 to November 1 this year at the rate of UAH 1 thousand per share (par value UAH 400).
According to a publication in the NSSMC’s information disclosure system, the decision to pay dividends was made by the company’s general shareholders’ meeting on April 28, and the supervisory board on May 5.
According to the NSSMC, as of the fourth quarter of 2024, the company’s president, Georgiy Skudar, owns more than 8.97% of NKMZ shares, while Galina Savenko and Elena Yakovleva, respectively, own almost 33.586% and 33.63% (according to media reports, Skudar’s daughters – IF-U). Since December 2023, the Supervisory Board of NKMZ has been chaired by the company’s Vice President Dmytro Skudar.
As reported, the shareholders allocated the entire net profit of UAH 36.33 million received in 2024, as well as part of the previously unused profit in the amount of UAH 186.98 million, to pay dividends.
According to the company, retained earnings as of the beginning of this year exceeded UAH 2.34 billion.
According to the company, NKMZ’s net income in 2024 increased by 3.2 times year-on-year to UAH 1 billion 146 million, including exports to Europe and Asia worth UAH 941.3 million (82%).
In 2024, Slovakia, Lithuania, Egypt and Luxembourg were added to the list of NKMZ’s largest importing countries along with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan (where exports decreased 12.3 times over the year) and India (where exports increased 31 times). Deliveries in Ukraine increased 5.2 times to UAH 204.6 million.
In 2023, the plant suffered a loss of UAH 856.93 million.
As reported, NKMZ, whose facilities were forced to be mothballed with the start of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, began to partially resume operations on October 1, 2023.
Last year, the workers were forced to stand idle from January 29 to March 1 “due to irregular production and economic activities, lack of centralized heating of production units and saving of fuel and energy resources.”
NKMZ is a city-forming enterprise in Kramatorsk and the largest in Ukraine for the production of rolling, metallurgical, forging and pressing, hydraulic, mining, lifting and transport, hydraulic and railway equipment.
As of the beginning of 2023, the average number of its employees exceeded 7.2 thousand, and as of the beginning of 2025, it was 5.660 thousand.
DTEK Kyiv Grids has completed almost 40% of the repairs planned for 2025 to prepare the city’s energy infrastructure for stable operation during peak consumption periods, in particular during the heat wave or autumn and winter.
“We have already completed almost 40% of the activities planned for 2025. In particular, we have repaired more than 90 transformer substations of different voltage classes and completed more than 300 repairs of cable lines,” the company said, citing Denys Bondar, CEO of DTEK Kyiv Electricity Grids.
In total, in 2025, the power engineers of the transmission system operator plan to carry out repairs at six high-voltage substations, as well as 802 distribution and transformer points. In addition, it is planned to repair almost 60 kilometers of overhead power lines, 60 transformers, 217 switches and carry out 2,150 repairs on underground cable power lines.
As noted in the company, the power engineers of the capital conduct inspections, diagnostics of equipment and electrical lines, in particular, using thermal imagers, mobile electrical laboratories, analysis of technical fluids, etc. and, based on the data obtained, identify weaknesses where an accident may occur.
As reported, last year DTEK Kyiv Electricity Networks repaired and reconstructed 797 power facilities and 62 km of power lines and performed 5 thousand repairs of cable lines, investing almost UAH 1 billion in these projects.
