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The Regions This Week
June 7, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Southeast Europe
The gas link between Bulgaria and Serbia should become operational by 2022, the energy ministry in Sofia said in a statement. The gas link will be part of the Turkish Stream extension on the territory of the two countries.
Swedish telecom company Tele2 AB agreed to sell its Croatian unit, Tele2 Croatia, to United Group for an enterprise value of €220mn. The sale is part of Tele2 AB’s strategy to focus on the Baltic Sea region.
Bosnia and Slovenia decided to scrap plans to build two hydropower plants due to pressure from environmentalists. The former Yugoslav countries were among those planning to build more hydropower plants, which have attracted many investors. However, the growing number of protests by environmentalists started forcing the authorities to change such plans since the beginning of the year.
Air pollution is responsible for up to one in five premature deaths in 19 Western Balkan cities, finds a new study led by UN Environment. On average, people lose up to 1.3 years of life to air pollution in the Western Balkans, where levels
of particulate matter can be over five times higher than the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
Turkey's grain production is projected to rise 1.1% y/y to 34.8mn tonnes in 2019, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) said. Wheat production in the country was expected to this year decrease 2.5% to 19.5mn tonnes, while it was anticipated that Turkish barley production in 2019 would move up 7.1% to 7.5mn tonnes, it added.
Romania’s retail sales maintained a robust growth rate in April, weakening only marginally to 7.1% y/y after the robust 8.5% advance in Q1. This is seen as supportive for GDP growth, but poses increasing risks since robust demand gen-
erates more imports; exports increased by 3.2% y/y in Q1 while imports were driven up by strong domestic demand by 7.4% y/y.
Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro will create a joint tourist offer aiming to attract visitors from China, Indikator.ba reported. The three countries rely on tourism for their economic development to varying extents.
The embassies of the UK and US strongly criti- cised the violence that erupted during a mass protest in the Albanian capital Tirana, and called on protesters to avoid further violence. Sunday’s protest was the latest in a series of large scale demonstrations organised by the opposition Democratic Party which has been seeking to up the pressure on Prime Minister Edi Rama to stand down — so far without success.
North Macedonia should obtain a date for the start of its EU accession talks in July, the Presi- dent of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said as quoted by MIA news agency. In May, the European Commission recommended the launch of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia after both countries made significant reform progress.
Romanian businessman Frank Timis was accused of bribing the president of Senegal
to retain two large offshore gas concessions at
a price of $250mn, which he subsequently sold to oil and gas major BP for between $9bn and $12bn, according to a BBC investigation. Both BP and Timis deny any wrongdoing.
Turkish buses and light trucks maker Temsa was sold to Swiss firm True Value Capital Partners, according to Bloomberg HT. Turkish manufacturers are mired in a currency crisis-
hit and recession-dogged economy, facing steep rises in costs driven by the dizzying decline of the lira since the start of 2018.