Page 6 - bne_newspaper_July_05_2019

The Regions This Week
July 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Southeast Europe
Albania’s governing Socialist Party as expected won most mayor posts in local elections boy- cotted by the main opposition parties. President Ilir Meta previously cancelled the vote by decree, but Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama was determined to go ahead with the election despite the boycott.
Bosnian aluminium smelter Aluminij faces closure, as electricity supplier Elektroprivreda HZHB is about to cut of its power due to BAM280mn (€143.2mn) unpaid debts. Aluminij is yet another industrial giant from the socialist era that seems no longer viable without state support.
Shops in the northern part of Kosovo, populated mainly by ethnic Serbs, were closed in a protest against the 100% tariffs imposed by Pristina on Serbian products. Kosovo introduced the 100% tariffs on imported goods from Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in November 2018 after Kosovo’s bid to join Interpol was thwarted by Serbia.
Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila was confirmed as president of the senior ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) at an extraordinary congress. Dancila, the unexpected prime minister candidate picked by former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to serve as his loyal lieutenant in early 2018, ended up by replacing her former mentor
as head of the party after he was sent to prison to serve a sentence for corruption.
Auto sales in Turkey declined by 16.36% to 42,688 units in June, the Automotive Distributors’ Association (ODD) said. Vehicle sales have been declining since April last year, however, the
latest figures for June showed that the pace of contraction in the market slowed.
Raiffeisenbank, Slovenia’s Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) and AIK Banka of Serbian businessman Miodrag Kostic are among those who have
expressed interest in bidding for a stake in Serbia’s second largest bank, Komercijalna Banka, b92 reported, quoting information from unnamed sources. The government is the biggest shareholder in the bank and hopes to sell a stake of between 50.1% and 83.23%
Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev defined nine areas of possible cooperation with China, calling for more Chinese investments in the country.
At the 8th China 16+1 summit in April, China promised to boost trade ties and to increase financial support for infrastructure projects in Central and Southeast Europe.
Romania saw the largest amount of new retail park space delivered in 2018 among the countries of Central and Southeast Europe included in a study by Cushman & Wakefield. During the year 76,000 sqm of new retail park space was delivered in Romania, putting it fifth across Europe.
Romanian state-owned company Romtehnica announced French Naval Group and its
local associate Constanta Naval Shipyard won a tender to build €1.2bn worth of
naval corvettes for Romania, according to a document consulted by G4Media.ro. The decision was announced after the tender for the corvettes was repeatedly stopped, cancelled and then resumed.
Turkey plans to hike its bank and insurance transaction tax rates to 0.2% from 0.1% for individuals’ foreign exchange purchases, in a move meant to curb a trend of Turks snapping up dollars and euros, people familiar with the plan told Reuters. In May, to help boost the beleaguered lira, Turkey increased the same tax to 0.1% from zero for forex sales. The plan to raise it again will not include lenders’ forex purchases, said one of the sources.