Slower upturn expected in the eurozone

While in Ireland, Spain and Greece recession will not end in 2010, Canada, Australia and New Zealand got the A1 rating again, while the US earned an A2. In these countries, the payment morale improved and growth in the number of insolvency procedures definitely slowed down. Due to the growth rate of the US economy, Coface revised its growth rate forecast and improved it to 2.3 percent – but the A2 rating is still worse than the A1 before the crisis. In fact, Coface is still afraid of the business slowdown that might occur in the middle of the year. For 2010 a 1.6-percent growth is forecasted for the industrial countries. The growth rate in the eurozone was a big disappointment in the last quarter of 2009: Germany was at a standstill, Spain and Italy remained in the negative zone, so Coface revised its forecast and reduced it to 0.8 percent.

Economic activity weakened in the eurozone and growth was more limited than in other parts of the world. As regards Hungary, Coface changed our rating from A3 to A4 and according to Zoltán Dercze, there was no significant change in the situation of enterprises. We can expect growing risks even in those sectors which are showing a positive trend on regional and global level. For a long-term improvement we would need a more robust economic growth in the EU, together with an increased level of domestic consumption and investments; until these factors do not change, Hungary’s risk rating will not improve – added András Bagyura, Coface Hungary’s commercial director.