After completion, envisaged for 2012, the complex stretching over 20,000 square metres should have some 200 modern apartments and studio flats.

“The location is exclusive, offers a beautiful view and is close to the down town area,” the project manager Peter Roth told local media.

He explains that his company hopes to attract exclusive buyers such as politicians and stars who are in need of high standards of living and the additional commodities like a security guard service that will watch over the complex.

The settlement will also include a hotel, restaurants, wellness and spa centre and various other leisure facilities, the investors say.

With its business endeavors in Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia, Soravia is one of the top real estate developers in the region.

The company already owns and operates a business centre in the Macedonian capital.
Source: Balkaninsight

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Metal firm Ferronikeli, one of Kosovo’s biggest companies, is importing lignite from the other side of the world because it cannot access the country’s rich reserves of brown coal.

Balkan Insight has discovered that the ferronickel exporter has been forced to sign deals with Malaysia and Indonesia to import lignite to its plant in Drenas.

Kosovo has about 14,700 million tonnes of unexploited lignite, worth some 120 billion euro, which is estimated to be the fifth largest reserve of brown coal on the planet.

But Kosovo’s current mines are soon to run out of coal and Ferronikeli, which was bought in 2007 by IMR/Alferon as part of Kosovo’s privatisation programme, complains that the lignite which is available cannot be used.

Arten Bajrushi, spokesman for Ferronikeli, told Balkan Insight: “Even early on, and still today, we have imported lignite from other countries of the world. We have agreements with Indonesia and Malaysia to import lignite.”

He added that only a very small amount of lignite is taken from KEK, Kosovo’s national energy provider, because the publicly owned firm cannot provide enough lignite, and that the coal it can provide is ‘too wet’ for Ferronikeli to use.

Bajrushi said: “Lignite that KEK uses for electricity is 38 per cent wet, while for our technological processes lignite needs to be only 18 per cent wet.

“This issue was supposed to be solved by a drying facility that KEK does have, but it does not work most of the time,” said Bajrushi.

He added that KEK’s organisational problems mean that it is cheaper for his firm to import coal from thousands of kilometres away rather than buy it in Kosovo.

Transporting from South East Asia remains cheaper, even though coal is shipped to Greece, as Albania and Montenegro do not have the capacity to take large cargo.

“The ports of Albania can only take 10,000 tonnes of coal, while the Greek ports can take 50,000 tonnes of coal, of which 10,000 goes to Ferronikeli and the rest is taken by other companies,” said Bajrushi.

He hopes that with the privatisation of KEK, the situation will improve, as currently only KEK has the right to sources of energy.

But officials at KEK told Balkan Insight that it does not have the right to sell lignite. According to Viktor Buzhala, KEK Spokesman, only Kosovacoal KC, a subsidiary of KEK, has the right to sell lignite.

He refused to comment on why the drying facility doesn’t work, pointing Balkan Insight towards KosovaCoal. No officials at the firm responded to questions.

Kosovo is currently using just 2 per cent of its coal stocks at the Mirash and Bardhi mines, which are soon to be exhausted.

Economic experts believe that Kosovo must quickly open new lignite mines, which would be able to supply Ferronikeli and other firms.

Azem Rexhaj, who is executive director of the Independent Commission of Mines and Minerals, ICMM, said: “There are two options for Ferronikeli to receive its lignite from Kosovo – one is for it to be supplied by KEK, and the other is for Kosovo to open a new lignite mine.

“Kosovo’s lignite is good enough quality to suit Ferronikeli. This can be seen by the fact that between 1985 and the beginning of the war, Ferronikeli used this type of lignite,” said Rexhaj.

He urged the government to take the necessary measures to open a new lignite mine.

“With the opening of a new mine, we will have the opportunity to extract sufficient lignite, will also create new jobs and will stop the import of lignite that wastes several million euros a year,” said Rexhaj.

Lignite reserves are plentiful in the Dugagjini and Drenica area of Kosovo, near the Ferronikeli plant, and can easily be exploited, he added.

Kosovo’s government has decided to deal with the situation by opening the Sibovc mine, which can supply coal for 40 years.

“Workers are moving fast to make the opening of the mine happen. We think that our first coal from this mine will arrive in the middle of next year,” said Arben Gjukaj, Managing Director of KEK.

The new mine is being opened to supply Kosovo’s new power station, Kosova e Re, which has been dogged by delays.

It is not known whether coal from this mine will be supplied to Ferronikeli or when the drying facility will begin to work again.Source: Balkaninsight

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A businessman with close ties to Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Taci viciously assaulted publisher and journalist Mero Baze on Monday evening in Tirana, following a series of reports accusing the businessman of tax evasion.

He is known as one of the Tirana businessman in Prime Minister Berisha’s inner circle. His other company, Taci Oil International has spent millions of euros organising charity football matches, with the proceeds donated to a children’s charity ran by Berisha’s wife.

Baze had ran a series of critical reports on his TV Show, Faktor Plus, on Vizion Plus TV accusing Rezart Taci and his company, the ARMO oil refinery of massive tax evasion.

Apart from the TV show, Baze also publishes the Tirana daily TEMA, a publication very critical of the government.

In a statement to the Commite to Protect Journalists on Thursday Taci denied any wrongdoing.

“I totally deny the allegations that I participated in the brutalities that have caused severe injuries to Mr. Baze. I not only deny my involvement, but I also condemn violence that so often mars our modern society,” he wrote.

The attack, which happened in the presence of two other journalists and other witnesses in Tirana bar, has been condemned by local politicians, diplomats and national and international media organisations.

“The assault of journalist Mero Baze on Monday, in one of the bars of the capital, is a grave and ugly act; unacceptable for a free society,” said Berisha in a statement on Tuesday.

Berisha called on law enforcement authorities to bring the culprits before justice. “Ill-treatment and pressure against journalists its grave and unacceptable for the Albanian government,” the statement added.

The assault was also condemned by the US Embassy in Tirana. “The United States Embassy was appalled by the assault of journalist Mero Baze on November 2,” the embassy said in a statement.

“Physical attacks on journalists and other forms of media intimidation cast a shadow over freedom of the press [and] all forms of pressure and intimidation of the media are unacceptable,” the statement added.

“Such use of violence is intolerable,” Reporters Without Borders said on Thursday. “It shows that certain businessmen who are allied with the government think they are all-powerful and do not have to account for their activities. We hail the universal condemnation this attack has received from the political class and the rapid police response, which suggests there is a will to put an end to impunity.”
“The fact that those involved in this incident are well known should help make people aware of the problem and encourage a debate about the press freedom situation in Albania,” the press freedom organisation added. Source: Balkaninsight

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Berisha told a regional conference on financial stability in Tirana that the euro is becoming a major issue “because this currency, supported by the biggest economy in the world, is exerting pressure on our [local] currencies”.

“I believe that the day on which we will surrender and will stop our fight against the euro is near, because we have no other way than to accept inclusion in the eurozone,” the Albanian leader added, as central bank governors from Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and other regional states looked on in silence.

“This is our destination, but when I see that even the British eurosceptics have begun to think differently on the euro, then you can imagine what kind of pressure that exerts on us,” he added.

Analysts have taken Berisha’s statement with a pinch of salt, arguing that inclusion in the eurozone is impossible at this stage in Albania’s development.

“Theoretically it is a good idea, but practically it is impossible,” says Ornela Liperi, chief editor of economics weekly Monitor.

According to Liperi, the Albanian government’s fiscal policy management record suggests that it is actually heading in the opposite direction, by amassing a large budget deficit.

“Albania is a developing country, which needs investments, and investments require loans and [a] deficit, and this is not compatible with the conditions a country should meet to join the euro,” she added. Source: Balkaninsight

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Unhappy at the treatment it has received from the local Macedonian authorites, the company filed suit on August 21, daily Dnevnik reported Thursday.

In June, Austrian utility company EVN, which operates the country’s electricity grid, filed a suit over alleged mistreatment in the same court.

Swisslion’s legal dispute with the Macedonian authorities started a year ago, after the State Securities and Exchange Commission banned the company from managing and collecting revenue from its shares in Macedonian candy factory, Agroplod, in July 2008.

Swisslion bought 25 per cent of Agroplod from the Macedonian state in 2006 for around 1 million euros. However, in 2008 the State Ombudsman filed a motion tearing up the deal, Dnevnik reveals.

The Ombudsman argued that the correct procedures were not followed during the public privatisation tender issued by the Economy Ministry. After a Skopje court overruled the Ombudsman’s finding, the Securities and Exchange Commission reacted by freezing the company’s shares.

Swisslion is also pursuing the case in the Macedonian courts, without any sign of a resolution emerging. The Serbian company has warned that Macedonia could be penalised severely if it loses the case in Washington.

Meanwhile, EVN is refusing to comment on August’s local Appellate Court decision in its favour. The court decided to overturn a previous ruling ordering the company to pay Macedonia’s state-owned power generator, ELEM, 200 million euros in purported debts.

The company did not say whether this would prompt them to withdraw their suit in the Washington-based court. Source: Balkaninsight

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The fall was attributed largely to the global economic downturn that has left many emigrant jobless. Albania has an estimated 1 million emigrants that work in EU countries and the US. This year, remittances are in the lowest level in three years.

“We see a strong correlation between unemployment rates in Greece and Italy and remittances brought in Albania,” the Bank of Albania said few weeks ago in its report on the financial stability of the country.

Remittances are considered a very important economic and social factor in Albania. Almost half of the families in rural areas rely on meet to meet their basic needs.

During 2008, Albania received 833 million euro from emigrants, down 12 per cent compared to 2007. However, according to central Bank, remittances’ role in the national economy is fading.

From 2005 to 2005, their share of Gross Domestic Product fell from 14.6 per cent in 2005 to 10.6 per cent of GDP in 2008.

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“Capital expenditures were limited to $6.1 million to minimize balance sheet risk and to focus on forward planning in a stable oil price environment,” the company said in a press release.

“To strengthen its balance sheet, on May 7, Bankers completed a bought-deal equity issue with a syndicate of underwriters of 25,143,800 common shares of the Company at CAD$1.75 per common share, generating gross proceeds of CAD$44.0 million,” the statement added.

On May 8, Bankers also announced that it had finalized a $110.0 million reserve-based long-term credit facility with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to supplement the company’s existing $32.0 million credit facility with Raiffeisen Bank.

Bankers petroleum received concessionary contract from the Albanian government to redevelop the country’s biggest onshore oilfield, Patos-Marinza. The company is considered the biggest single foreign investor in the country. Current production levels rate at 6400 barrels of oil per day. Albanian crude is considered as low quality oil situated in a very fragmented terrain. Its extraction is costly and the oil price is usually less than 60 per cent of Brent crude oil.

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A record near 20 per cent output plunge was registered, when compared to July 2008. This is the tenth month in a row that industrial output has shrunk.

Macedonia’s flagship metal industry was the hardest hit, experiencing a staggering 63 per cent drop in production. Textiles production also fell away badly, down 36 per cent and iron ore extraction fell by 24 per cent.

Overall, the Macedonian economy contracted by 13 per cent from January-July this year.

“These trends are catastrophic and their effects are yet to be seen,” former finance minister Xhevdet Hajredini told local daily Utrinski Vesnik.

While companies are constantly pleading for state help, the cheap credits that are supposed to keep the economy afloat are late in coming due to procedural problems.

This year the government has already been forced to shave the state budget once, and is preparing for a second round of cuts

Despite a decrease in tax revenues, the government said it recently recorded the first signs of economic recovery.

The government still believes that industrial output will grow by one per cent this year, but the IMF is more pessimistic, forecasting a drop of around two per cent. Source: Balkaninsight

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The city of Vlora in southern Albania, which a decade ago was considered a hot spot for human trafficking, is reinventing itself as a vacation hub.

Stretched along a bay where the Adriatic and Ionian Sea meet, Vlora has long been considered one of the cities with the highest potential for tourism development in Albania.

However, after a breakdown of law and order in 1997, following the collapse of a series of Ponzi-investment schemes in which most of the town invested, the city became something of a frontier town.

In the late 1990s, traffickers and corrupt politicians set up a massive smuggling operation, shipping migrants and drugs on speedboats across the Adriatic to Italy.

Curbing the smuggling and its human cost became a problem for the Albanian government and a roadblock on its path to EU integraton. In response, the government launched a crackdown in 2004, and a three-year moratorium on the use of speedboats from 2006 to 2009.

Now, the city has left behind its darkest hours, and is reinventing itself, attracting more tourists every year, not only from Albania, but also from Kosovo, Macedonia and elsewhere.

Nowhere is this change more visible than in the city’s ever-changing skyline. There are hundreds of new developments and construction sites are opening up daily along the coast.

“Vlora is booming, and I don’t just say that because I am a real estate agent,” says Fiona Bosticky of Fresh Property Albania.

“The city is literally doubling in size and every time I go there there is more and more construction in the city and along the coast,” she adds.

Apartment prices start from around 550 euros per square metre in the centre, and go up to 2,400 euros per square metre for upscale projects along the coast.

On the main stretch of beachfront, apartments are priced at around 900 euros per square metre with those with a sea view for sale at around 750 euro per square metre.

According to Bosticky, who mainly provides consultancy services to foreigners interested in Albania’s property market, the main foreign buyers are Italians and Kosovo Albanians.

“Buyers from the UK and other parts of Europe don’t really understand Vlora’s potential at the moment,” she says.

“Prices for real estate on the Vlora coast are already the most expensive in Albania, and it will [only] get higher. [This is] also due to the growth of industry and the expanding port, which will mean more people looking for property,” Bosticky explains.

However, she warns that a series of large industrial developments planned on the city’s northern shore could prove problematic.

“They will need to be watched closely so that the area doesn’t get polluted,” Bosticky says. Source: Balkaninsight

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Deputy Economy Minister Enno Bozdo said the privatization of the shares was successful and a sign of the strength of the Albanian economy amid the global economic crisis.

“We consider this as a very successful sale and another vote of confidence of foreign investors in Albania,” Bozdo told reporters. “Its value is even bigger as we see the European economy and some Balkan countries showing signs of recession.”

This year Albania plans to end to sell  its minority holdings in former state-owned companies to finance public infrastructure projects, particularly a highway linking it with the neighbouring Kosovo.  The state still holds a 24 percent of the phone company Albtelkom, 15 percent of the refiner ARMO, and  24 percent of utility OSSH.

Albania has three mobile operators in the market and the highest mobile rates in Europe. A tender for a fourth mobile license is expected to be held in November. Experts hope that the recent expansion of newcomer Eagle mobile and the eventual arrival of a fourth operator will increase competition and reduce call rates, as the two other companies currently present in the market, Vodafone and AMC, have often been accused by consumer groups of unfair pricing practices.

In November 2007, the two companies were fined €3.7 million by Albania’s Competition Authority for abusing their dominant position in the market by setting unfair prices.

(Reporting by Besar Likmeta) Source: Balkaninsight

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