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The Regions This Week
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Southeast Europe
Turkey is highly reluctant to buy more crude
oil from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to replace volumes that the US says would breach its new drive to push Iranian oil exports to zero. “Iranian oil isn’t cheap but there is a big difference” with the price of Saudi and UAE crude, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, according to state-run TRT television.
North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev plans a government reshuffle and a major "wipe out" in the administration following the second round of the presidential election, after the governing coalition's candidate won fewer votes than expected. The coalition’s candidate Stevo Pendarovski was less than one percentage point ahead of his main rival Gordana Siljanovska- Davkova in the first round and the two will face each other in the runoff on May 5.
The Romanian Chamber of Deputies adopted
a series of changes to the criminal codes critics say will weaken the rule of law and Romania’s anti-corruption fight. The opposition announced it will challenge the bills at the Constitutional Court.
Slovenia’s economic sentiment indicator (ESI) deteriorated by 2.1pp at the monthly level in April and worsened by 6.4pp on an annual basis, the Statistical Office of Slovenia announced. Since the beginning of the year, the sentiment indicator has decreased by 5.3pp.
A Turkish consortium reportedly walked away from talks with the Albanian government on the construction of Vlora airport on Albania’s southwestern coast. Albania’s sole airport in the capital Tirana is operated by a Chinese consortium, but there are plans to revive the idled airport in Kukes as well as building the new airport in Vlora.
Slavisa Krunic, a prominent Bosnian Serb businessman, was shot dead near his home north of Banja Luka, the administrative centre of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska. Krunic’s death raised many questions as he has spoken out against Milorad Dodik, member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency and the leader of Bosnia's main
Serb nationalist party.
Bulgaria’s financial supervision body launched
a probe into financial and insurance group Eurohold and in its main units following the announcement that it has been granted exclusivity for the acquisition of the local assets of Czech energy company CEZ. The news that Eurohold was the preferred buyer of CEZ’s assets has raised questions about the company’s ability to fund the deal and provoked rumours that Russian financing might be involved.
Swiss-based cocoa and chocolate products manufacturer Barry Callebaut said it plans to invest €50mn in the construction of a chocolate factory in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad. This will be Barry Callebaut's first chocolate factory in SEE.
Moldova’s industrial output growth accelerated to 3.8% y/y in February after modest 0.4%- 0.5% annual growth rates over the previous three months and negative performances in September-October last year. Despite the slowdown in recent several months, Moldova posted a robust 3.8% industrial advance in 2018.
The administrators of Romanian petrochemical company Oltchim filed for the company’s bankruptcy. State-controlled Oltchim became insolvent in 2013 and several privatisation attempts have failed since then. In December 2017, creditors of Oltchim agreed to sell the operating assets of the company for €127mn
to Chimcomplex Borzesti.