The European Commission (EC) has downgraded its forecast for the European Union’s economic growth in 2024 to 0.9% from the previously expected 1%. The forecast for the eurozone’s GDP growth this year remains at 0.8%. In 2025, the European Commission expects the eurozone’s GDP to grow by 1.3% and the EU’s by 1.5%. The May forecast envisaged a rise of 1.4% and 1.6%, respectively. In 2026, the eurozone’s economic growth rate will accelerate to 1.6%, and the EU’s – to 1.8%, the regulator predicts.
“After a long and widespread stagnation, the EU economy returned to growth in the first quarter of this year. As expected in the spring, moderate but steady growth rates continued in the second and third quarters amid further easing inflationary pressures. The prevailing conditions point to a moderate acceleration in domestic demand, despite heightened uncertainty,” the press release said.
According to the EC’s forecast, inflation (HICP index) in the euro area will slow to 2.4% this year from 5.4% in 2023 and weaken to 2.1% in 2025. In May, inflation rates were forecast at 2.5% and 2.1%, respectively. In 2026, consumer prices are expected to grow by 1.9% in the euro area and by 2% in the EU.
“Household disposable income continued to grow at a good pace in the first half of the year, driven by increased employment and the ongoing recovery in real wages,” the report says.
At the same time, the situation with investments was disappointing, as the indicator decreased by more than 2.5% in the first half of the year. The European Commission called increased uncertainty the main negative factor for both consumer spending and business investment.
Unemployment in the eurozone is expected to reach 6.5% this year and drop to 6.3% next year, remaining at this level until 2026. In the EU, unemployment is expected to decline to 5.9% in 2025 and 2026 from 6.1% in 2024.
In 2024, the budget deficit in the EU countries may shrink to 3.1% of GDP from 3.6% of GDP a year earlier, and in the eurozone countries – to 3%. In 2025, the figures will drop to 3% and 2.9%, respectively, and in 2026 – to 2.9% and 2.8%, the EC predicts.
The ratio of total public debt to GDP in the European Union is expected to increase to 83.4% by 2026 from 82.1% in 2023.
Germany’s economy, according to the EC’s forecast, will shrink by 0.1% this year and grow by 0.7% next year. France’s GDP is expected to grow by 1.1% and 0.8%, respectively, Italy’s by 0.7% and 1%, and Spain’s by 3% and 2.3%.
“The economic outlook for the EU remains extremely uncertain, and the risks are largely shifted downward,” the European Commission said in a statement.
These risks include geopolitical risks, in particular those related to Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, as well as foreign trade risks related to possible “protectionist measures by trading partners.” The EC also points to the risks of weak labor productivity growth and the danger of large-scale natural disasters.
According to EastFruit analysts, Ukraine in the 2024/25 season continues to actively catch up with the world leaders in frozen raspberry exports, which remain Serbia and Poland. However, Poland is increasingly dependent on re-exports of products, mainly of Ukrainian origin, to hold on to its leadership position.
During the first three months of the season, from July to September inclusive, Ukraine exported more than 28 thousand tons of frozen raspberries and blackberries, which is a new record for this period. Exports thus increased by 36% compared to the same period last year and by 45% compared to 2022. It is noteworthy that the increase in exports comes against the backdrop of numerous reports from farmers about a lower raspberry crop in 2024.
“Although Poland remains the main market for frozen raspberries from Ukraine, its share in total exports continues to decline. Ukraine is gradually starting to enter with frozen raspberries directly into traditional markets for Poland, such as Germany and France. For example, this season the share of the German market in frozen raspberry exports from Ukraine already exceeds 20%,” says Andriy Yarmak, economist at FAO Investment Department.
Among the main markets for Ukrainian raspberries at the beginning of the season are also the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Austria, Belgium and Italy. Also in the new season, the first batches of Ukrainian frozen raspberries have already been shipped to such important and promising markets as the USA and Canada.
According to analysts, even Serbia, the world leader in raspberry exports, purchased a large batch of produce from Ukraine in September 2024, apparently for re-export.
Spanish authorities intend to regularize up to 300,000 migrants a year to make up for the country’s labor shortage due to an aging population, Spanish Social Security and Migration Minister Elma Sais said Tuesday.
“Spain has a choice between an open prosperous country or a closed poor country. We have chosen the second,” Western media quoted her as saying.
According to her, the policy involving migrants will last three years. She specified that Spain needs 250 – 300 thousand foreign workers a year, able to pay taxes, in order to preserve the welfare state.
The new measures of the authorities provides for simplification of procedures for issuing immigrants residence and work permits, which will contribute to the receipt of foreign workers guaranteed labor rights. In addition, newcomers seeking work will be able to extend their visa from three to 12 months. Foreigners with study visas will be allowed to work up to 30 hours per week.
The media notes that the economy of Spain – a country with a population of 48.9 million – is the fastest growing in the EU. This trend is also facilitated by the influx of skilled migrants from Latin American countries. Fitch Ratings Inc. estimates that more migrants will enter Spain in 2022 than in the entire previous decade at one time.
However, October opinion polls conducted by Spanish media showed that 57% of respondents believe the current level of migration into the country is too high. 54% believe that the real number of immigrants is higher than the authorities declare.
Zelenyi Park LLC (Iziaslav, Khmelnytskyi region), which produces corrugated paper (fluting) and containerboard, increased its production by 24% in January-October this year compared to the same period in 2023, to UAH 474.07 million.
According to statistics provided by Ukrpapir Association to Interfax-Ukraine, the company’s growth rate slowed slightly over the first 10 months of the year, compared to 26.6% in the first nine months of the year.
In January-October, the company’s output in physical terms increased by 8.6% to almost 27 thousand tons. At the same time, in October, the company reduced production of fluting and test liners by 9.4% by October 2023 and by 17% by September this year, to 3.1 thousand tons.
Zelenyi Park LLC was registered in 2011 and manufactures products from waste paper, processing up to 72 thousand tons of waste paper annually.
The plant is equipped with Finnish Valmet equipment, which allows it to produce fluting and testliner with a density of 70 to 200 g/sq. m and a roll width of up to 2.8 m.
According to the Clarity Project, the owner of 100% of Zelenyi Park LLC is Cyprus-registered Carton Mill Limited, and the ultimate beneficiaries are Kyiv resident Volodymyr Shandra and co-owner of ATB Corporation Gennadiy Butkevych.
The company ended 2023 with a loss of UAH 78.2 million (56% more than a year earlier) on a 6.8% drop in revenue to UAH 498.6 million.
Lifecell LLC (TM lifecell), the third largest mobile operator in Ukraine, plans to increase its capacity by 30-40% during the first quarter of 2025 by purchasing an additional 5 MHz of frequencies in the 2100 MHz band for UAH 463 million at an auction on Tuesday, the company’s CEO Mykhailo Shelemba said.
“The entire set of measures we plan to implement should at least double the capacity for subscribers next year,” he told Interfax-Ukraine, adding that this will be achieved by installing additional equipment that expands the capacity to use these frequencies in specific sectors, as well as by switching to newer technologies on these frequencies.
Shelemba clarified that the investment in the use of these additional 5 MHz will be small, as it will use existing equipment. According to him, this gives the company the opportunity to use existing resources for resilience – the company has purchased 32 thousand lithium-polymer batteries, which will arrive in December – and more concentrated use of these frequencies through equipment upgrades and synchronization of frequencies with each other: so that frequencies in the 2100, 1800, 900 and 2600 MHz bands work in one ensemble.
Shelemba noted that he was pleased with the results of the auction, although lifecell purchased only one lot, while its two major competitors bought two lots each.
“Our No. 1 priority is to provide the maximum capacity improvement for our subscribers as quickly as possible. And this is provided by lot 2, because it is already very close to our frequencies that we use, and we can simply expand the spectrum by 30% with the same equipment,” he explained.
“The second factor is that even though we already have 10 million subscribers, we have one of the best situations when we count the number of frequencies per subscriber. That is why we see a huge potential for using these frequencies,” added the head of lifecell.
According to him, two of the five lots in the 2300 and 2600 MHz bands acquired by Kyivstar and VF Ukraine (Vodafone Ukraine) require a new network to be built to utilize them.
Mr. Shelemba attributes the fact that all five lots at the auction were sold at prices close to the initial ones to a good, correct strategy of the regulator, which ensured a guaranteed high price and the right restrictions to prevent concentration.
“Each operator calculates the cost of a frequency for itself. But we also calculate, based on our best assumptions and models, how much these frequencies cost for competitors. And when we looked at the starting lots, we saw that the regulator had set the starting price quite high and close enough to the price we were willing to pay,” the operator’s director said.
“It is also important to understand that unlike the first tenders, when there were just new frequencies for 3G or new frequencies for 4G, these frequencies are already additional to the existing ones,” Shelemba added. According to him, lifecell and Vodafone Ukraine sought to acquire primarily the frequencies adjacent to their existing spectrum in the 2100 MHz band, as they were the most efficient, while other frequencies were of lesser value to them.
“Here, the regulator and the state are already choosing everything that can be chosen from these additional frequencies. Therefore, there was a fairly logical distribution of who took which lot, precisely because there are already frequencies in use,” summarized the lifecell CEO.
He added that the 5G factor should also be taken into account.
“Currently, the number of 5G terminals in use is about 20%. In 2-3 years, if we take this as a baseline scenario, the number of terminals will be 35-40%, maybe even higher – up to 50%. And what will happen? When you build a 5G network, terminals use 5G traffic and, accordingly, do not use 4G frequencies. Thus, these 4G frequencies are unloaded,” Shelemba explained.
As reported, on Tuesday, the regulator NKEC held an auction, as a result of which Kyivstar, Vodafone-Ukraine and lifecell received new frequencies in the 2100, 2300 and 2600 MHz bands for 15 years, offering a total of UAH 2 billion 894.734 million for them at an initial total price of UAH 2 billion 871.531 million.
In accordance with the terms of the technology-neutral nationwide licenses established by the NCC, each of the winners undertook to ensure the use of the received frequency band at at least 1,500 base stations within 24 months from the date of the license’s commencement, and at least 500 base stations within the first 12 months.
In January-September 2024, BNSF Insurance (formerly Brokbusiness Insurance Company, Kyiv) collected UAH 400.7 million in gross written premiums, which is 46.5% more than in the same period of 2023, Expert Rating RA reported in information on the confirmation of the insurer’s financial strength rating at uaAA+ on the national scale.
According to the rating agency, the share of insurance premiums attributable to reinsurers decreased by 19.08% during the specified period, and their share in the structure of the company’s gross premiums decreased by 1.51 pp – to 1.86%.
In the first three quarters of 2024, BSS Insurance paid 54.74% more insurance claims and indemnities than in the same period of 2023, and the level of payments increased by 1.76 percentage points to 33.05%.
As of October 1, 2024, the company’s equity increased by 28.47% to UAH 162.39 million, gross liabilities – by 2.98% to UAH 241.09 million. In the analyzed period, equity coverage of the insurer’s liabilities increased by 13.36 p.p. to 67.36%.
The amount of cash and cash equivalents in the analyzed period increased by 39.12% to UAH 241.01 million, and the ratio between cash and liabilities increased by 25.96 p.p. to 99.96%.
In the analyzed period, the financial results of BGS Insurance improved significantly. Thus, according to the results of the first nine months of 2024, operating profit amounted to UAH 35.41 million, and net profit – UAH 37.47 million.
The company has been operating in the Ukrainian insurance market for over 25 years and is represented in all regions of the country. It holds 39 licenses for voluntary and compulsory insurance.
