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The Regions This Week
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Southeast Europe
The Albanian opposition led by the Democratic Party held a fresh protest on April 3, but it attracted far fewer people in comparison with previous rallies. A series of protests against the government of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, which the opposition have accused of corruption, links with organised crime and bad governance, have been held since February 16.
The volume of retail sales in Romania increased by 9.0% y/y in February, marking the highest annual growth rate in more than a year. Fur- thermore, January's annual growth was revised to 7.4% y/y, after the initial 6.6% y/y estimate pointed to a possible slowdown. The seasonally and workday-adjusted sales index edged down by 0.2% from January, but it remains at the second- highest level seen in the past decade.
Romania’s finance ministry will issue government bonds to the population on April
2, the ministry announced on April 1. The bonds have maturities of one, two, three and five years and the offered yields are 3.5%, 4%, 4.5% and 5%. So far, more than 20,000 Romanians have invested in government bonds more than RON1.2bn (€251.9mn), according to the ministry.
US carmaker Ford confirmed on April 3 that it will produce an SUV-inspired compact crossover named the Ford Puma at its assembly plant in the Romanian southwestern city of Craiova. Ford’s overall investment in its Romanian manufacturing operations has been nearly €1.5bn since it acquired the Craiova facility in 2008.
The European Commission (EC) has approved grants amounting to about €1.9bn for four major projects in Romania on April 2, European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu announced. All of these projects are part of the "Large Infrastructure" Operational Programme.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal has rejected the recovery plan proposed by media group
Realitatea Media, which operates the opposition news TV station Realitatea, which consequently will go bankrupt. Realitatea’s demise might be seen as either part of Romania’s ruling coalition's pressure against independent media, or the end of a media group with a complicated past.
Chinese company Minth Automotive Europe launched construction of a factory to
produce aluminum parts for cars in the Serbian western town of Loznica on April 2, the cabinet of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said.
Chinese company Shandong Linglong has started the construction of a €800mn rubber plant in Serbia’s northern town of Zrenjanin, the Serbian government said. Shandong Linglong Rubber Co.,Ltd. announced in August 2018 plans to officially start the construction of the factory, which will take place in three phases, with the final phase being completed in March 2025.
Bulgaria’s state-owned natural gas supplier Bul- gargaz said it has picked a consortium comprising Saudi Arabia's Arkad Engineering and Construc- tion Company and Italy-registered Arkad ABB for construction of the Turkish Stream extension on the country’s territory that will connect the gas network with Serbia. The Arkad consortium has offered to build the 484 km pipeline for €1.29bn within 250 days, or for €1.10bn should the dead- line be extended to 615 days.
Bulgarian financial and insurance group Eurohold said on April 1 it has filed a bid for the local assets of Czech energy company CEZ, confirming earlier rumours it might be the third unknown candidate who has joined the race for the deal. In February 2018, CEZ announced it had selected local family-owned firm Inercom as the buyer of its Bulgarian assets, which raised serious concerns about the Bulgarian company’s ability to fund and run the assets. Adding to the controversy, Inercom was also found to be owned by a close friend of Bulgaria's energy minister.