Last year’s number of insolvent companies is 2.5% higher than in 2016 and Coface expects insolvency numbers to keep rising, with a 10.4% increase in 2018 and a 15.5% advance in 2019, respectively.
On a regional level, insolvency numbers rose 6.4% in 2017, with Poland, Hungary and mainly Croatia seeing significant increases in the number of insolvent companies, while Slovakia and the Czech Republic reported declines.
CEE has enjoyed enhanced economic activity over the last years, which was mainly seen in 2017 when the average GDP growth in the region reached 4.5%, the highest rate since 2008. Nevertheless, the favourable business environment in 2017 was not enough to improve the situations related to companies’ liquidities.
The global number of insolvencies rose 6.4% in 2017, which translates into a reverse of last years’ trend that saw a 6% decrease in 2016 and a 14% decline in 2015. In 2017, several countries were affected by an increase in insolvency numbers. Throughout 2017, nine countries reported a higher volume of insolvencies (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Slovenia), and only five countries reported declines (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia and Ukraine).