Page 9 - bne_newspaper_August_24_2018

The Regions This Week
August 24, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Southeast Europe
Romania’s ruling coalition of the Social Demo- cratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Alde) would take 45% of the vote if an election was held now, according to the latest Sociopol poll conducted – a massive 8pp fall from the 53% they polled in June. PSD alone plunged 6pp to 35% in voting intentions.
Over one million Romanians signed a petition
organized by the Save Romania political party (USR), calling for a referendum to strengthen anti-corrup- tion laws. The party wants to ban candidates who served jail sentences from standing for public office.
Bulgaria’s government dismissed a press officer who was accused of slapping a reporter during the visit of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov to an archaeological site. Bulgaria scores bottom in the EU press freedoms rankings, according to Report- ers Without Borders.
Romanian potato production could drop by as much as 30% this year versus 2017, which threat- ens the inflation forecast by doubling the price
of the staple food item. The volatile food prices makes the government attempts to keep the budget deficit within the 3%-of-GDP target harder.
Slovenia’s consumer confidence indicator de- clined by 2pp in August against July but remains at six-month long record levels, Slovenia's Statis- tical Office said. In January the confidence indica- tor reached its highest value since March 1996, when it rose by 5pp y/y and 1pp m/m.
Moldova’s public debt increased marginally by 0.7% y/y to MDL51.3bn (€2.56bn) at the end of July, but the debt-to GDP ratio dropped by 2.5pp to 31.5% according to data released by the ministry of finance. Country’s external public debt decreased by 3.4% y/y to MDL28.4bn at the end of July.
Bulgaria reported a current account deficit of €102.1mn in the first six months of 2018, revers- ing a surplus of €483mn, according to the central
bank, due to significantly expanding goods and services accounts. In January-June, the goods deficit increased 72.3% y/y to €1.74bn, while the services surplus expanded 21.6% y/y to €1.01bn.
Romanian FDI inflows in the last 12 months were up by 22% y/y to €5.03bn as of the end of June, according to bne IntelliNews calculations. But “genuine” FDI, (not including re-invested earn- ings) shrank by 27% y/y to €2.23bn according to same calculations.
Turnover on the Montenegro Stock Exchange (MNSE) halved to €1.56mn in July, significantly below the €3.25mn recorded a year earlier. In 2017, turnover on the MNSE totalled €47.5mn, markedly below the €115.2mn recorded in 2016, due to the sale of €80.4mn of four-year govern- ment T-bonds.
The full liberalization of the electricity market in Macedonia will start as scheduled after Janu- ary 1, 2019, media reported on August 23. In May, the Macedonian parliament adopted a new energy law, which is aimed at aligning national energy legislation with that of the EU.
Chinese company Shandong Linglong Rubber Co. Ltd plans to open rubber factory in Serbia’s northern town of Zrenjanin in April, the Serbian government announced on August 23.
The government of Romania in its August 23 meeting endorsed 16 infrastructure investment projects, including eight new ones, as priority projects to be financed under public private part- nerships. No details about the value of the pro- jects, or the calendar for the partnerships, were announced.
The Romanian state lost over RON8bn (€1.7bn) during 2006-2018 because the royalties charged to natural gas producers have not been updated to market prices, according to the mineral re- sources agency ANMR.