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The Regions This Week
March 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Southeast Europe
The European Commission said the privatisation of Slovenia's largest lender NLB is essential to prevent possible future credit misallocation and ensure its long-term viability. Slovenia had pledged to privatise the bank as a condition for a 2013 liquidity injection, but scrapped a planned IPO last June amid a dispute over the pricing of the offer.
An IMF official advised the Albanian government to suspend its ambitious €1bn PPP project due to concerns over increased debt. The national programme dubbed “A billion for reconstruction” is aimed at mobilising substantial capital for road infrastructure, educational and health projects in the country.
Robotic process automation company UiPath, founded by two Romanian entrepreneurs, raised $153mn from a group of international venture capital investors. The funding will be used to accelerate product development, including by expanding collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, as well as to invest heavily into global expansion.
Several top officials resigned from Macedonia’s anti-corruption commission amid a growing scandal over allegedly inflated expenses claims. The irregularities were found during an audit con- ducted by the Public Revenue Office.
Bulgaria’s government dropped attempts to ratify the Istanbul Convention. Ratification of the European treaty intended to combat violence against women was withdrawn from the parlia- ment’s agenda as Boyko Borissov’s ruling GERB came under pressure from its far-right coalition partners.
Support for Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) plunged from more than 40% at the general elections in 2016 to 34%, only 1pp above the main opposition party, a poll showed. Trust
in PSD leader Liviu Dragnea plunged to only 9%, from above 40% at the time of the election.
Serbia and Macedonia resolved a dispute over flour imports. Tensions rose between the two countries as the problem emerged after the Mac- edonian government adopted new regulations on imports of flour from Serbia.
Heavy rain and melting snow caused floods in Albania. The northern city of Shkodra was the worst affected area.
The presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia held their first trilateral meeting for six years. The meeting focussed on the new EU enlarge- ment strategy and ways of improving relations among the three countries.
The new crisis management at Croatia’s trou- bled food and retail group Agrokor aims to reach a deal on the debt settlement plan by April 10. The group, which came close to collapse in early 2017 after a run on its bonds, is trying to restruc- ture around €5.5bn worth of debt.
86% of Kosovan private companies say the busi- ness situation in the country is good or satisfac- tory, compared to only 16% who see it as unsatis- factory, a new report from the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce (KCC) found. Problems cited by busi- nesspeople included customs procedures, high energy costs and difficulties in obtaining loans.
Thousands of Macedonians protested in Skopje and around the world over the planned change of the country’s name. The protests came as the Macedonian and Greek authorities have been making major progress in negotiations to solve the “name dispute”, which has lasted more than two decades and blocked Macedonia’s entry to the EU and Nato.
Montenegro’s government revised its budget plan for 2018, raising the projected deficit to 3.16% of GDP from initially planned 2.6%. At the same time, the borrowing for this year was also increased, to €440mn from initially planned €296.7mn.