Central and Eastern Europe

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Central and Eastern Europe is a term describing former communist states in Europe, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989/90. In scholarly literature the abbreviations CEE or CEEC are often used for this concept.[1][2] CEE includes all the Eastern bloc countries west of the post-World War II border with the former Soviet Union, the independent states in former Yugoslavia (which were not considered part of the Eastern bloc), and the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — that chose not to join the CIS with the other 12 former republics of the USSR. The transition countries in Europe and Central Asia are thus classified today into two political-economic entities: CEE and CIS. The CEE countries are further subdivided by their accession status to the European Union (EU): the eight first-wave accession countries that joined the EU in May 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia) and the two second-wave accession countries that joined in January 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria). According to the World Bank, "the transition is over" for the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007.[3]

CEE includes the following former socialist countries, which extend east from the border of Germany and south from the Baltic Sea to the border with Greece:

Other former Communist countries in Europe — Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia — are members of CIS and are not included in CEE. The term Central and Eastern Europe (with its abbreviation CEE) has by now displaced the alternative term East-Central Europe in the context of transition countries, mainly because the abbreviation ECE is ambiguous: it commonly stands for Economic Commission for Europe rather than East-Central Europe.[5]

IT and Telecommunication Market in CEE

CEE countries are near to the bottom of the rankings for most Information Society indicators, such as e-governance, e-business or e-commerce. In 2009, the highest percentage of basic public services available online for citizens was in Hungary, remaining slightly below the European average. The biggest proportion of public services fully available online for enterprises was in the Czech Republic (100%), Poland (88%) and Slovakia (88%). Usage of e-government services was the most popular among Slovakians, as almost one in three citizens used it in 2009 and among Poles, where one in four inhabitants was a user of e-government services. [6]

Grocery Market in CEE

Retailers

In all the countries, the sector of small retailers was hit the hardest by the unfavourable economic climate and reduced consumer spending accompanying the higher unemployment. For example, in Romania and Hungary, the total value of sales in small groceries dropped by around 10% y-o-y in 2009. As a result, only the convenience stores and these of the chains, cooperating in the networks outlets, managed to demonstrate the positive development. In addition, the hypermarket segment also faced poorer results than in 2008, as customers often turned their attention to discount stores, which offered cheaper products. [7]

Hypermarkets

The total share of the hypermarket segment in the whole CE region achieved nearly 20% in 2009 and they are the largest among modern retail channels, providing revenues around one-fourth higher than the second-place supermarkets. The leading retailer on the Central European hypermarket segment is the British Tesco, which is a front-runner in all the countries but Romania, with Carrefour being the leader on this market. The segment, although possessing the highest share of the market, was significantly impacted by the economic downturn and the customers spending less on the non-food range and trying to rationalise their shopping habits. As a result, its size calculated in euros decreased in 2009, by nearly 9%. [8]

Discount stores are the most popular grocery shopping venues among 16% of households in the CEE region. Discounters are not present among the main shopping venues in Bulgaria and Serbia, where small stores and other retail formats are the absolute leaders in terms of food shopping (53% and 60% respectively). [9]

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ Z. Lerman, C. Csaki, and G. Feder, Agriculture in Transition: Land Policies and Evolving Farm Structures in Post-Soviet Countries, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD (2004), see, e.g., Table 1.1, p. 4.
  2. ^ J. Swinnen, ed., Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in Central and Eastern Europe, Ashgate, Aldershot (1997).
  3. ^ Unleashing Prosperity: Productivity Growth in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, World Bank, Washington (2008), p. 42
  4. ^ Template:Kosovo-note
  5. ^ ECE – United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
  6. ^ IT and telecommunications in Central and Eastern Europe.
  7. ^ Grocery Market in CEE.
  8. ^ Grocery Market in CEE.
  9. ^ Retail and FMCG sectors in CEE

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