Eastern Europe 'most important' new market

[Jaga]

This is what is going on now. Since the unemployment in Poland is high, people are educated and easy to train and the labor is cheap and ... the most important it is in a close distance to Western Europe - the Western European copanies are moving their factories to Eastern Europe!

Eastern Europe has been labelled the most important emerging market for Western European businessmen, narrowly beating China, according to a study released today by Accenture, the management consultants.

A survey of sales, marketing and supply chain executives from large European companies showed that 66 per cent considered Eastern Europe "important" - compared with 61 per cent for China. India and Russia were the next most important emerging markets, selected by 32 per cent and 24 per cent of respondents, respectively.

Eastern Europe, China and India were also picked out as potential threats for Western companies in their home markets. Some 59 per cent of respondents cited Eastern Europe as the emerging market providing the greatest competition, followed by 37 per cent who cited China, 20 per cent who cited India and16 per cent who cited Brazil.

Jaume Ferrer, a senior executive in Accenture’s Supply Chain Management practice, said: "Although sourcing from Asia offers stronger price-related advantages, many European companies are looking to Eastern Europe as their preferred source for manufacturing and tier-one suppliers because they often provide a better balance between cost, flexibility, product availability and quality."

business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13130-1936406,00.html

[george]

Jaga, this baffles the hell out of me. With the advantages Poland has over so many countries, i just can't figure out why their unemployment figures are so darn high.Maybe someone a lot smarter than me can give me an answer of that one.

[jimpres]

Something is going on the PLN is getting stronger each day against the dollar.

Jim

[sciwriter]

The following was said on Radio China International on short wave. Eastern Europe provides aq viable economic alternative for USA. Carl:

China To Reduce Exposure To Dollar
Move Would Probably Push Currency Down

By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 10, 2006; D01


SHANGHAI, Jan. 9 -- China has resolved to shift some of its foreign exchange reserves -- now in excess of $800 billion -- away from the U.S. dollar and into other world currencies in a move likely to push down the value of the greenback, a high-level state economist who advises the nation's economic policymakers said in an interview Monday.

As China's manufacturing industries flood the world with cheap goods, the Chinese central bank has invested roughly three-fourths of its growing foreign currency reserves in U.S. Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets. The new policy reflects China's fears that too much of its savings is tied up in the dollar, a currency widely expected to drop in value as the U.S. trade and fiscal deficits climb.

China now boasts the world's second-largest cache of foreign exchange -- behind only Japan -- and is on pace to see its reserves climb past $1 trillion later this year. Even a slight diminishing of the dollar as a percentage of those holdings could exert significant pressure on the U.S. currency, many economists assert.

In recent years, the value of the dollar has been buoyed by major purchases of U.S. Treasury bills by Japan, China and oil-exporting countries -- a flow of capital that has kept interests rates relatively low in the United States and allowed Americans to keep spending even as debts mount. Some economists have long warned that if foreigners lose their appetite for American debt, the dollar would fall, interest rates would rise and the housing boom could burst, sending real estate prices lower.

The comments of the Chinese senior economist, made on the condition of anonymity because the government disciplines those who speak to the press without express authorization, confirmed an analysis in Monday's Shanghai Securities News stating that China is inclined to shift some its savings into other currencies such as the euro and the yen, or into major purchases of commodities such as oil for a long-discussed strategic energy reserve.

In a report circulated this week, Stephen Green, senior economist with the bank Standard Chartered PLC in Shanghai, identified several signals that China is intent on limiting its exposure to the dollar -- not least, a recent pledge from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange to "actively explore more efficient use of our foreign exchange reserves."

"We believe this adds to the downside pressure the USD [U.S. dollar] is currently facing," Green wrote. "It is the first official expression from SAFE that they are looking at switching away" from the dollar.

The comments on SAFE's Web site reinforced earlier public warnings from Yu Yongding, an economist on the monetary policy committee of China's central bank, that the country's reserves are now vulnerable to a drop in the value of the dollar.

"The general trend for the U.S. dollar is continuously weakening," Yu said, speaking to reporters at a conference in Beijing last month. "Countries with huge foreign-exchange reserves will have their assets shrunken."

Last week, Hu Xiaolian, director of the foreign exchange administration, said China plans to "optimize the structure" of its reserves. Analysts took that to mean China would pursue a higher return than it can get from holding dollars by diversifying its reserves.

Not all economists anticipate negative repercussions for the U.S. economy. Were China and Japan to engineer a significant fall in the dollar, those nations also would suffer the consequences -- sharply diminished exports as Americans lose spending power, plus a drop in the value of their dollar assets.

"It is thus extremely unlikely that China would do anything to harm its own balance sheet," wrote Stephen Jen, an economist with Morgan Stanley, in a research note distributed Monday.

In 2005, the dollar rebounded against major foreign currencies as the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates -- making dollar assets relatively more attractive than others -- but has slid a bit early this year. Meanwhile, China continues to amass foreign-exchange reserves at a pace of roughly $15 billion per month.

Warnings about an impending Chinese sell-off in dollars emerged in July, as China slightly altered the way it sets the value of its currency, the yuan, bumping it up against the dollar by about 2 percent. At the time, China announced that it would gradually allow greater movement in the exchange rate -- something that has yet to materialize -- while also shifting from a system in which the yuan moves with changes in the dollar to one where it tracks a basket of currencies including the yen, the euro, the Hong Kong dollar and the South Korean won.

The move temporarily muted criticism on Capitol Hill from those who accuse China of currency manipulation, asserting that an artificially low yuan has made China's goods unfairly cheap on world markets. But as the implications of the new currency policy rippled out, some analysts suggested that China would thereafter have less need for dollars and greater need for the other currencies in the new basket, sending the greenback down and risking higher U.S. interest rates that would dampen economic growth.

China sought to quash such talk. In September, a senior central bank official told a ballroom full of international executives gathered in Beijing that China would not sell significant quantities of U.S. bonds, cognizant that such a move would "cause the price to plunge."

Even if a Chinese shift away from the dollar weakened the currency, that would probably not soothe tensions with those in Washington calling for an increase in the value of the yuan to help U.S. manufacturers. Unless China severs the link between the value of its currency and the dollar -- a move Beijing says could destabilize its economy -- then a weaker dollar would simply mean a weaker yuan as well, leaving in place the current debate over whether China's export earnings are being netted unfairly.

Special correspondent Eva Woo contributed to this report.

[forza]

why their unemployment figures are so d**n high.

The real unemployment is around 9 % . About 10 % are registered as unemployed to keep free medical care while working and getting paid in cash by bosses who save on social security. Sometimes the job is offered so employee is supposed to choose paid social security and less money on hand or more in paycheck plus once a month visiting unemployment office to keep medical.

Something is going on the PLN is getting stronger each day against the dollar.

We have a brand new finance minister. She's a "liberal" and the one who was openly against chains of supermarkets and into increasing budget deficit was fired. Supposedly financial sectors reacted with stronger PLN but it also has something to do with government issuing bonds that creates demands for PLN (if I understand it correctly) PLN should go down soon. Today PM Marcinkiewicz promised to do something about it. Our exporters are getting into trouble supposedly.

[jimpres]

Forza,

When you mean go down do you mean more or less PLN per $? Currently it is about 3.1PLN to 1 $
So will it be 2.75 PLN to a $ for example or 3.5PLN to a $

Jim

[forza]

PLN should get weaker according to our PM.
3.5 PLN for 1 USD is something to expect.

[forza]

I would back up the above - quoting PM Marcinkiewcz:
www.thebusinessonline.com/DJStory.aspx?DJStoryID=20060110DN006571

[jimpres]

Forza,

Thanks for your thoughts and the reference to PM Marcinkiewcz

Dziekuje Bardzo,

Jim

[forza]

Jim,
The situation is kind of fluid still....
It looks as the bonds will be issued and that would create a larger demand for PLN which should keep it expesive (perhaps you'd get only 2.75 for your 1 USD )

www.interfax.com/5/119760/news.aspx