Business: Turkey's Ziraat Bank opens branch in Athens
20/02/2009
Ziraat Bank of Turkey opens its first branch in Athens. Also in business news: Macedonian and Slovenian businesspeople participate in a Skopje forum, and a Greek company wins a two-year contact with the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency.
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Turkey's state-run Ziraat Bank opened its first branch in Athens on Tuesday (February 17th), becoming the first Turkish commercial bank to operate in Greece. Ziraat Bank is also set to open another branch in the northern town of Komotini. The two branches will begin operations with capital of nearly 18m euros.
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The Serbian government will subsidise the purchase of Fiat Puntos from Zastava, a Kragujevac-based carmaker, Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said on Wednesday (February 18th). He added the government would provide a state subvention of 1,000 euros for motorists trading in old cars for new Puntos. Dinkic said the measure still needs cabinet approval and should come into force by March.
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The World Bank projects Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) GDP growth at 1.5% to 2.5% in 2009 and is confident the country can avoid recession if it takes advantage of credits that international financial institutions already have offered it, the head of the Bank mission in BiH, Marco Mantovanelli, told Reuters on February 11th. The Bank estimates BiH's current-account deficit will drop from 14% of GDP in 2008 to 10% of GDP in 2009.
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General Electric (GE) is interested in building a wind park in the Bulgarian municipality of Mirkovo, Economic and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov announced on Tuesday (February 17th). GE is ready to invest up to 800m euros in the project, which observers expect to have an annual capacity between 120 and 150 mW.
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Macedonian and Slovenian businesspeople took part in a business forum in Skopje on Tuesday (February 17th). The chambers of commerce of the two countries and the Slovenian-Macedonian business club organised the event.
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Cypriot Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis confirmed on Monday (February 16th) recent media reports that Russian entrepreneurs are planning to build a Disneyland-type amusement park -- the biggest in Cyprus -- in the village of Pyla. The site of the 878m-euro project is between the Greek and Turkish zones, a location meant to support the two communities' reconciliation.
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Intracom Defence Electronics, part of Greece's Intracom Holdings, won a two-year renewal contract for the support of the Patriot air defence systems in Europe with the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, the company announced on Tuesday (February 17th). The company has been manufacturing and integrating most of the electronic ground systems for the Patriot system over the last two years.
(Various sources – 13/02/09-20/02/09)
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