Search Results for: Macedonia

BY ZLATKO CONKAS

Will Croatia’s ascension to the EU hamper the country’s tobacco industry?

Croatia’s strong tobacco sector stands to benefit from selling into the European Union once the country joins the EU. However it could lose trade in neighbouring states because of duty changes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a major political initiative to prevent European Union (EU) member states being played off against each other in energy negotiations with major suppliers, such as Russia. It has proposed legislation that would insist national EU governments give Brussels information on any current deals and negotiations regarding energy supplies, including, but not only, oil and gas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENERGY ministers from the European Union (EU) and the Balkans will next month (October 6) vote on a new plan to create a ‘gas ring’ of pipeline links uniting the fragmented energy markets of south-eastern Europe. A meeting of the Energy Community, an organisation linking the EU’s supposedly united energy market with those in neighbouring countries to the south and east, will be asked to back an ‘Implementation Plan for Gas Infrastructure Development in the Energy Community’.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

TURKEY’S USD2 billion paint market may be forecast by manufacturers to grow between 12% and 13% this year on the back of a resurgent construction sector; however, paint exports are currently struggling. This is because of a combination of lacklustre market demand in Europe along with the troubles companies are facing in terms of implementing European Union (EU) regulations required as Turkey meshes with the EU’s REACH chemical control system.…

BY MARK ROWE

RENEWABLE energy investments may often be low in price, but when there are enough of them, they make a difference in a region’s energy profile. Such is the case for eastern Europe, where many millions of Euros are being invested in green energy projects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MEETING of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, staged by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has accepted reports highlighting significant shortcomings in openness for some jurisdictions. The Pacific island state Vanuatu fared worse, being accused of "significant deficiencies in the availability of information" with its government lacking "any powers to access information" about taxing its residents and companies.…

BY ZLATKO CONKAS, and KEITH NUTHALL

WHEN imagining Europe’s greenest and most efficient energy systems, the countries of the former Yugoslavia do not readily spring to mind. The simple truth is Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and even Slovenia have a reputation for having ageing energy dirty systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and ALYSHAH HASHAM

CANADA – long a difficult jurisdiction for the tobacco sector – became tougher still on July 5, when a national ban on manufacturing and selling most flavoured cigarettes, cigarillos and blunt wraps came into force.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) may be legally a single market, food prices range widely across its 27 member states. The most recent survey of 500 comparable products by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, shows last year (2009) the price of a comparable basket of food and non-alcoholic beverages was more than twice as high in the most expensive EU country than the cheapest.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHEN it comes to the power sector, it certainly pays to be green in eastern Europe right now. The London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), whose mandate is to bring sustainable development to eastern Europe and central Asia, has been especially active in promoting green energy across the region.…