VILNIUS — Swedbank president and CEO Michael Wolf told the prime minister that out the three Baltic countries, Lithuania in particular is showing signs of light at the end of the tunnel.
That doesn’t mean the average Lithuanian will be better off economically in the near future, though.
Swedbank has been one of a [private_supervisor]handful of Scandinavian banks to lose large sums of money in the Baltics through over lending. Huge swaths of the bank’s loan portfolio in the Baltic states have been written off as unrecoverable.
Wolf still thinks business prospects in the region could be profitable, though. He said that financial markets are showing signs of recovery and noted that for businesses, now is the appropriate time to search for new investments, the prime minister’s press service reported.
Wolf met with Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius among a Swedish delegation in Lithuania.
Not an entirely rosy picture
Meanwhile, the bank has calculated that pre-crisis earning levels for households in the country will not be restored until 2017, a projection reinforcing the conclusion of a recent IMF paper suggesting that if the “Baltic Tiger” boom hadn’t happened the region would be better off economically today.
Lithuanians, particularly in the public sector and increasingly in the private sector have seen huge wage cuts across the board.
Hourly labor costs, the total expenditure for labor divided by hours worked, had decreased for the fourth quarter in a row. In the latest quarter, the index fell 10.3 percent year-on-year, Statistics Lithuania reported.
However, the index fell 7.4 percent comparing the first quarter of 2010 against the fourth of 2009. The rapid drop was attributed to rising unemployment, unpaid leave and corporate production down time during the first quarter. [/private_supervisor] [private_subscription 1 month]handful of Scandinavian banks to lose large sums of money in the Baltics through over lending. Huge swaths of the bank’s loan portfolio in the Baltic states have been written off as unrecoverable.
Wolf still thinks business prospects in the region could be profitable, though. He said that financial markets are showing signs of recovery and noted that for businesses, now is the appropriate time to search for new investments, the prime minister’s press service reported.
Wolf met with Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius among a Swedish delegation in Lithuania.
Not an entirely rosy picture
Meanwhile, the bank has calculated that pre-crisis earning levels for households in the country will not be restored until 2017, a projection reinforcing the conclusion of a recent IMF paper suggesting that if the “Baltic Tiger” boom hadn’t happened the region would be better off economically today.
Lithuanians, particularly in the public sector and increasingly in the private sector have seen huge wage cuts across the board.
Hourly labor costs, the total expenditure for labor divided by hours worked, had decreased for the fourth quarter in a row. In the latest quarter, the index fell 10.3 percent year-on-year, Statistics Lithuania reported.
However, the index fell 7.4 percent comparing the first quarter of 2010 against the fourth of 2009. The rapid drop was attributed to rising unemployment, unpaid leave and corporate production down time during the first quarter. [/private_subscription 1 month] [private_subscription 4 months]handful of Scandinavian banks to lose large sums of money in the Baltics through over lending. Huge swaths of the bank’s loan portfolio in the Baltic states have been written off as unrecoverable.
Wolf still thinks business prospects in the region could be profitable, though. He said that financial markets are showing signs of recovery and noted that for businesses, now is the appropriate time to search for new investments, the prime minister’s press service reported.
Wolf met with Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius among a Swedish delegation in Lithuania.
Not an entirely rosy picture
Meanwhile, the bank has calculated that pre-crisis earning levels for households in the country will not be restored until 2017, a projection reinforcing the conclusion of a recent IMF paper suggesting that if the “Baltic Tiger” boom hadn’t happened the region would be better off economically today.
Lithuanians, particularly in the public sector and increasingly in the private sector have seen huge wage cuts across the board.
Hourly labor costs, the total expenditure for labor divided by hours worked, had decreased for the fourth quarter in a row. In the latest quarter, the index fell 10.3 percent year-on-year, Statistics Lithuania reported.
However, the index fell 7.4 percent comparing the first quarter of 2010 against the fourth of 2009. The rapid drop was attributed to rising unemployment, unpaid leave and corporate production down time during the first quarter. [/private_subscription 4 months] [private_subscription 1 year]handful of Scandinavian banks to lose large sums of money in the Baltics through over lending. Huge swaths of the bank’s loan portfolio in the Baltic states have been written off as unrecoverable.
Wolf still thinks business prospects in the region could be profitable, though. He said that financial markets are showing signs of recovery and noted that for businesses, now is the appropriate time to search for new investments, the prime minister’s press service reported.
Wolf met with Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius among a Swedish delegation in Lithuania.
Not an entirely rosy picture
Meanwhile, the bank has calculated that pre-crisis earning levels for households in the country will not be restored until 2017, a projection reinforcing the conclusion of a recent IMF paper suggesting that if the “Baltic Tiger” boom hadn’t happened the region would be better off economically today.
Lithuanians, particularly in the public sector and increasingly in the private sector have seen huge wage cuts across the board.
Hourly labor costs, the total expenditure for labor divided by hours worked, had decreased for the fourth quarter in a row. In the latest quarter, the index fell 10.3 percent year-on-year, Statistics Lithuania reported.
However, the index fell 7.4 percent comparing the first quarter of 2010 against the fourth of 2009. The rapid drop was attributed to rising unemployment, unpaid leave and corporate production down time during the first quarter. [/private_subscription 1 year]
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