UniCredit sees east Europe economies improving-CEO

There are signs of improvement in the economies of central and eastern Europe and the region should see an end to the financial crisis before countries further west, Italian bank UniCredit said on Thursday.

The chief executive of UniCredit , emerging Europe's biggest lender by assets, said one should not be too optimistic about the region, but added:

"(This is) an area of the world which will certainly exit the crisis before western Europe."

Speaking on the sidelines of a foreign ministry event,Alessandro Profumo also said: "We can't say that there is a full-blown boom but certainly we are seeing signs ofimprovement."