Business

The Management Forum of the Southeastern Europe in Belgrade, Serbia (19 - 20 September) has brought together a great number of home and foreign economic experts and businessmen. Addressing participants of the Management Forum of Southeastern Europe in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic underlined that the economic recovery is a national priority and that it has to be based on new investments. Jelena Milenkovic has more.Prime Minister said that Serbia needs a plan to stabilize ... more

Martifer Solar is opening a new office in Romania. Based in Bucharest, the new subsidiary will share the same building of all the other business units of Martifer group which is already present in the Romanian market since 2004. The company is now present in more than 20 countries over 4 continents (Europe, North and Latin America, Africa and Asia).At this regard, Pedro Pereira, Martifer Solar’s Regional Manager for the Mediterranean and Managing Director for Romania, commented that "with about ... more

Atlas Copco has agreed to acquire the Ekomak Group, a Turkish manufacturer of industrial screw compressors, strengthening its market position in the region. Ekomak has a strong domestic position in industries such as metal works, textile and manufacturing.Ekomak was established in 1992 and has around 160 employees. It is privately owned and had revenues in the last 12 months of approximately MEUR 23 (MSEK 200). The company develops, produces and sells stationary, oil-injected screw compressors, including variable frequency drive options.Headquartered ... more

Honeywell underscored its commitment to Turkey during a recent visit of one of its top executives for high-growth regions, who outlined Honeywell’s strong position in a variety of industrial sectors and how its technologies and solutions are contributing to a growing Turkish economy.In May Norm Gilsdorf, recently named president of high growth regions-Russia, Central Asia and Middle East, held meetings with Honeywell’s Turkish leadership team and local customers from the aerospace, energy, finance, chemicals, and construction sectors. More than 100 ... more

Annual survey on business environment done earlier this year by the Serbian-German Economic Association (DSW) among its membership shows that despite the difficult economic environment, 51% of surveyed companies are expecting increased business turnover, while 45% of them foresee profit increase in 2012. As many as 91% of interviewed companies said they would re-invest in Serbia, which is a respectable result compared to surveys in the region.When evaluating the current state of their own companies, a total of 48% of ... more

Many Italian corporations have recently taken advantage of this state of affairs, moving part (or all) of their production into Yugoslav successor states (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), all of which have very sound relations with Rome. Market penetration in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia is more difficult because of German and Austrian prominence, though some economic hubs are emerging around Italian companies or merchant banks. Generally speaking, Italian investments in the Balkans have been made in four principal areass, in which operate ... more

Foreign Direct Investments in Romanian industryBosch invests 90 million Euros in a new plantGerman company Bosch announced it would invest 90 million Euros to build a new production plant in Blaj, central Romania. Bosch intends to build auto sensors and thermo technic profiles, in the new production facility, when the new investment is completed at the end of 2013. By now, the company has purchased a seven-hectare-plot where the future production facility will be built. Bosch currently has a Rexroth ... more

At September 15th SIPLACE team organized a press conference for industry’s leading trade show Productronica 2011 and invited journalists from the world trade press to visit SIPLACE Headquarters in Munich, Germany. During the press conference Mr. Guenter Schindler announced a whole series of innovative SIPLACE solutions for the following process steps: new product introduction (NPI), setup changeover and production run. Mr. Guenter Lauber, CEO of ASM Assembly Systems, and W. K. Lee, CEO of new SIPLACE parent ASM Pacific Technology ... more

The world’s machine tool industry is being reshuffledsays Martin Kapp, Chairman of the VDWThe German machine tool industry is forecasting a 30 per cent increase in production output for 2011. "With the return to an anticipated volume of almost 13 billion euros, we would have caught up on almost all the deleterious effects of the crisis. That’s something we could be more than satisfied with", says Martin Kapp, Chairman of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association), speaking at its ... more

Toshiba Corporation and Bulgarian Energy Holding EAD (BEH EAD) signed a Memorandum of understanding (MOU), under which they will discuss further developing cooperation in the field of energy and energy efficiency. The potential relationship between the parties includes closer cooperation in energy generation, including thermal power, hydro power, nuclear power and solar photovoltaic power, and increasing the efficiency of power transmission and distribution through the development of smart grids. The MOU signing was attended by Mr. Traicho Traikov, Bulgaria’s Minister ... more

The funding is provided by Eurobank EFG Group in cooperation with the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Financing AgencyThe Eurobank EFG Group secured credit lines financing amounting to over 1.4 billion Euro for small and medium-size enterprises in Greece and the countries in Southeast Europe – Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. This places the Group as a major partner of supranational financial institutions for the support of small and medium enterprises. 805 ... more

The representatives of Lazar Dairy and GHD Inc. from Wisconsin, USA, signed a contract for the construction of a biogas digester on a dairy farm in Blace, South Serbia. The total investment is in the amount of $1.5 million, while the majority of the cost of the biogas digester pertains to associated infrastructure investments at the farm.It is expected that the digester will be fully operational by September 2011 and as such, it will represent one of the most significant ... more

Global Industry Leader Positioned for Growth and Development in Promising Eastern European MarketAt January 26, 2011 the world leader in wind energy Vestas has officially opened a new office in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, showing confidence in the development of the Romanian wind energy market and preparing Vestas for future growth in one of the most promising markets in Eastern Europe. The office will serve the Romanian wind energy market, support Vestas’ activities in other Eastern European countries, and ... more

The power sector in Bulgaria is complex and dynamically developing and thus offering variety of opportunities to local and international companies. Bulgaria is situated in Southeastern Europe, where both energy deficiency and demand are growing. In the recent years, the country has been an important regional electricity supplier.Electricity in Bulgaria is produced largely by thermal plants. The main thermal power plants in the country are Maritsa Iztok Complex, TPP Varna, TPP Rousse, TPP Bobov dol, TPP Maritza-3 Dimitrovgrad.Maritsa Iztok ComplexThe ... more

A new fund has been set to support energy efficiency projects and reduce carbon emissions in the Balkans and TurkeyThe Southeast Europe Energy Efficiency Fund, SE4F has been established by the European Investment Bank EIB, Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau, KfW, the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD.The EIB, KfW and the EBRD are each investing 25 million euro and the Commission is providing close to 20 million euro. The founding institutions eventually aim to increase the ... more