Page 7 - bne_newspaper_March_08_2019

The Regions This Week
March 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Southeast Europe
Turkey seems on course for a full-blown reces- sion following last summer’s currency crisis that has sparked economic turmoil and crushed much consumer demand. Calculations from 19 econo- mists polled by Reuters point to Turkey's economy having shrunk by 2.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, dragging full-year growth down to a below- forecast 2.55%.
Potential delay of big infrastructure projects and external factors such as Brexit could slow down Bulgaria’s economic growth in 2019, the central bank said. Potential introduction of new foreign trade protection measures could also slow down the growth.
Anti-corruption NGO MANS filed a claim against Montenegro’s President Milo Djukanovic and several other businessmen and politicians who it accused of abusing their positions to gain illegal profit from the privatisation of power firm EPCG.
The Romanian-Kazakh Energy Investment Fund plans to invest $230mn to build a cogenera-
tion plant and open a petrol station network. The fund, 80% owned by KMG International and 20% by Romania, will build the cogeneration plant over four years, to provide heating and hot water to the town of Navodari.
China's Hisense Electric Co plans to open a TV set plant in Slovenia at the end of 2020. Hisense is the majority owner of Slovenian household ap- pliances producer Gorenje.
Several thousand opposition supporters staged a protest in Albania, defying a police decision not to give permission for the protest. Despite this, the opposition Democratic Party went ahead with the planned protest, accusing the police of break- ing the law with their decision not to allow the rally to take place.
Serbian energy firm Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) will invest €1.5bn in new projects and facilities by 2025 and is considering launching
oil and gas production in Bosnia & Herzegovina, eKapija reported, quoting the company’s CEO Kiril Tyurdenev. NIS is majority owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft which holds a 56.15% stake in the company.
Unemployment was named as the deepest fear of young Croatians in a comprehensive study of the status and aspirations of the younger gen- eration, by the Friedrich Ebert Stifung Founda- tion and the Institute for Social Research. Young people are overwhelmingly focussed on socio- economic issues, while they held a deep distrust of political institutions.
The government of North Macedonia launched the process of the renaming the country’s insti- tutions under the Prespa name deal with Greece that changed the name of the country. Most of the state intuitions retained their names, with "North" being added before "Macedonia".
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund for global invest- ments — Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, which is the world's larg- est sovereign wealth fund thanks to hydrocarbon wealth — last year invested around $111mn in ob- taining stakes in eight Turkish energy companies, Turkish state-run news service Anadolu reported. In all during 2018, the Norwegian fund reportedly invested $707mn in 58 Turkish companies.
The Bucharest bourse included Romanian alu- minium maker Alro in its main index BET and in BET-TR, the total return version of BET. It is the first time in the history of the local capital mar- ket that these indices will include 16 companies, while Alro is the first aluminium producer to be included.