Poor performance will not impair EU hopefuls

Although Central and Eastern European markets have failed to perform as well as their US or Western European counterparts in recent months, emerging European equities are still believed to be undervalued. The main reason for this is that convergence ' entry to the European Union (EU) ' looks to offer potential gains for investors in these countries. Klaus Bockstaller, manager of the Baring Emerging Europe fund, anticipates EU accession will boost converging European economies in the same way as happened with Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal when they joined up. 'Inflation and inte...