Page 15 - bne_newspaper_April_27_2018

Southeast Europe
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
ing steel in the fight against inflation. At present, Turkish consumer confidence and likely partially electoral preferences will be driven by the stability of the lira from very depreciated levels”.
While ranking as landmark elections in that
they will trigger potentially epoch-making constitutional changes – creating an all-powerful executive president, scrapping the position of prime minister and greatly weakening the role of parliament – voting will still be significantly driven by the state of the economy. Analysts see the economic gains and jobs delivered by the ruling Islamic-rooted AKP in the past 15 years as the party’s key point of appeal to the electorate. “And,”
London court decides to extradite founder of Croatia’s Agrokor
Carmen Simion in Bucharest
The Westminster Magistrates Court in London ruled on April 23 to extradite the founder of food and retail giant Agrokor, Ivica Todoric.
Croatia’s largest company, which employs around 60,000 people in the region, is undergoing restructuring after a debt crisis pushed it to
the brink of collapse last year. An audit report has shown that the Agrokor Group’s net loss in 2016 amounted to HRK11bn (€1.46bn), while the company’s liabilities amounted to HRK56.3bn.
In October, Croatia issued a European arrest warrant for Todoric, amid an ongoing investigation related to financial irregularities uncovered at
added Ash, “in this rate hike, the CBRT and I think the AKP just affirmed that when push comes to shove, they get it – there are limits to their more unorthodox behaviour.”
One of the worst performing emerging market currencies in the world this year, the TRY started 2018 at around 3.79 to the dollar and plummeted to an all-time low of 4.1944 on April 11. The deval- uation turned into a dizzying descent as worries mounted about growing imbalances in Turkey’s surging credit-fuelled economy – which post-
ed ‘warp-speed’ growth of 7.4% in 2018, outdo- ing China – and fears persisted over the possible undermining of central bank independence.
the group after it entered restructuring. He was arrested in London on November 7 last year and released on a £100,000 bail.
Following the British court’s ruling, Todoric
said he would use all available means to avoid extradition, but at the same time he announced his return to Croatia in the near future, according to Total Croatia News.
“You will all be surprised when I come to Croatia,” he told media, declining to give a precise date for his return.
Apart from Todoric, several other people are being