In Brief
Turkey boosts spending for 2009 ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish public spending will rise by 11.8 percent in 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Nazim Ekren said yesterday, easing fiscal policy ahead of a possible new International Monetary Fund deal expected to be less stringent. Turkey’s government, which faces key municipal elections in early 2009, is under pressure to tackle high youth unemployment rates. It also plans to boost development in the largely Kurdish southeast to drain support for Kurdish separatist militants. Ekren, who is in charge of economic coordination, told Reuters in an interview the government had to boost investment spending to modernize the country’s infrastructure and defended the rise as «a reasonable figure.» Economists are concerned the government will opt for a less strict fiscal policy after its standby accord with the IMF ended in May – regarded as an anchor of steady economic policy. An IMF mission will travel to Turkey in the early fall to conduct post-program monitoring. Eurobank Properties to buy Bulgarian company Eurobank Real Estate Properties Co, Greece’s biggest real-estate investment trust, signed an initial agreement with Arcon Constructions to acquire a Bulgarian company for about 90.8 million euros. The joint-stock company owns a plot of land in Sofia where Arcon will build a 31,530-square-meter building for office and retail use with 370 parking spaces, according to a bourse filing today from Athens-based Eurobank Real Estate. Arcon Constructions will hand over the building to Eurobank by October 2011, the filing said. Once completed, the building will be leased to the Bulgarian unit of EFG Eurobank Ergasias SA, according to the filing. (Bloomberg) RWE-Bulgaria German power utility RWE is still a favorite to become a strategic investor in Bulgaria’s planned 4-billion-euro nuclear power plant, sources close to the talks said yesterday. Bulgaria has asked RWE and Belgian Electrabel, owned by France’s GDF Suez, to improve their offers for a 49 percent stake in the plant it is building to restore the country’s position as a leading electricity exporter in Southeast Europe. State utility NEK, which will keep a majority stake in the 2,000-megawatt plant, has said it plans to pick a winner by the end of the month. (Reuters) Nabucco on track The Nabucco gas pipeline, which seeks to link central Asia’s gas fields with Europe, is on track despite the Russia-Georgia conflict, the project’s chief executive said in an interview published yesterday. Speaking to The Financial Times, Reinhard Mitschek said the conflict had «no impact» on planning for the US- and EU-backed pipeline, which is expected to be completed by 2013. The 3,300-kilometer pipeline is to run via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria, and Mitschek told the business daily that a market survey had shown «huge demand» for it. (AFP) Romanian industry Romania’s industrial growth accelerated in July as a weaker leu boosted exports and economic expansion lifted demand for manufactured goods. Production grew an annual 5.1 percent, compared with 4 percent in June, the country’s National Statistics Institute said yesterday. Output fell 1.4 percent on the month, from a decline of 1.5 percent in June. (Bloomberg)
