Speaking in a conference Tuesday, Zalduendo said Poland and the Czech Republic have better economic policies, which made them more resilient to the cash shortage.
As a result, Poland is expected to register an economic growth of 1% in 2009, while Romania’s economy is likely to contract by approximately 7%.
According to Zalduendo, the states in the Central and Eastern Europe will have a hard time returning to economic growth similar to the levels recorded prior to the crisis, because the old performances were sustained by high global liquidity, which is now depleted.
The World Bank’s office in Bucharest on Tuesday launched its report „Turmoil at Twenty: Recession, Recovery, and Reform in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,” issued on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.