Search Results for: Bulgarian

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of exemptions from the European Union’s (EU) new energy taxation directive have been proposed by the European Commission for the eastern and southern European countries joining the EU in May (barring Cyprus).

They would be added to the already long list of exemptions negotiated by existing Member States that prompted EU internal market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein to liken the legislation to “Gruyere cheese”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is helping to fund the construction of a 150 kilometre 400 kV transmission power line that will link the electricity grids of neighbouring Balkan countries Bulgaria and Macedonia. Although 80 kilometres of the electricity cables will be in Bulgaria, the bank’s Euro 40.5 million loan will be paid to Elektrostopanstvo na Makedonija (ESM), Macedonia’s state-owned power utility; Bulgarian electricity provider Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompanija would meet its share of the project’s costs by providing electricity to ESM during construction.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) energy ministers have agreed new rules for applying value added tax to cross-border gas supplies that will reduce confusion created by increasing cross-border trading in energy supplies. Now, traders re-selling supplies who are not established in the same country as the supplier will pay VAT through an obligatory reverse charge system.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it has dropped its plans to impose a temporary safeguard duty on imports of flat-rolled products of non-alloy steel plus iron or steel bars and rods. The decision follows an investigation staged by the Bulgarian government.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL in Paris, ALAN OSBORN in London, MARK ROWE in Singapore, ED PETERS and DON GASPER in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST in Johannesburg, MONICA DOBIE and PHILIP FINE in Montreal, MATTHEW BRACE in Brisbane and ALEX SMAILES in Port of Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to lend international private equity group Advent International Euro 10 million, to help it, and an associated consortium, buy 65 per cent of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), which is being privatised.…

BY MARK ROWE
CUSTOMS and Excise officers in Bristol have made the biggest ever seizure of contraband cigarettes in Britain’s West Country region. More than 10 million cigarettes with an estimated duty value of Pounds 1.75 million were found in a crane imported at the city’s Royal Portbury Dock on board a Bulgarian timber ship.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has followed up an agreement to integrate Balkans countries’ electrical systems with that of the European Union by announcing a Euro 130 million loan for developing the region’s electricity networks.

Euro 70 million is being lent to the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, (Euro 59 and 11 million respectively).…

Keith Nuthall
THE BULGARIAN government is to stem a boom in imports of white tinplate crown corks; Sofia is imposing temporary safeguard duties to protect Bulgaria’s production of this key drinks packaging product, used to seal glass bottles. It told the World Trade Organisation that imports in 1999 increased by 673 per cent compared to 1998, and by 874 per cent in 2000, which “contributed significantly to domestic products’ price decline and to reduced profitability.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations has highlighted how some member countries have been using their money laundering laws to criminalise corruption, while employing bribery or corruption laws to outlaw money laundering. A report by the UN Secretary General’s department on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions has lead to national laws being tightened regarding these crimes lists a number of case studies.…