What's Happening in Black Sea? - June, 2015

Bulgaria

The 150 kilometer-long gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Serbia is to be completed by 2018 so that gas could start flowing in 2019.

Bulgaria’s economy has a 2 % growth in Q1 of 2015, compared to last year. The country’s GDP grew by 0.9 % with € 8.82 billion in Q1. 

According to Deputy Economy Minister, Lyuben Petrov, a Pakistani investor is planning to build a textile factory in Bulgaria, with € 28 million total investment value and 5,000 jobs.

Fitch Ratings on Friday affirmed Bulgaria's long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings at BBB- and BBB, respectively. Outlook for both ratings are stable, Fitch said in a statement. GDP growth is projected at 1.2% for 2015 and 1.5% for 2016 respectively.

Foreign direct investment in Bulgaria reached to € 523.5 million in the first four months of 2015, which is forming 1.2 % of the country’s GDP. For the same period last year, FDI was € 426.6. 

Standard & Poor's has confirmed its long- and short-term foreign and local currency rating on Bulgaria at 'BB +/ B' with stable outlook.

International rating agency Moody's has confirmed Bulgaria's rating in terms of government securities - Baa2, noting stable prospective developments.

Georgia

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili expects 2% and 3% rise for 2015 and 2016, respectively. Georgian currency Lari lost 30 % its value against $ since November 2014. Georgia has been performing well in terms of economy growth; the country has 5 % average annual growth between 2009 – 2012, 7 % in 2013 and 6 % in 2014. 

Georgia has been ranked among top 25 percent of countries for having an investment friendly country according to International Business Compass 2015. 

The state debt of Georgia since the beginning of the year has dropped $ 173 million making nearly $4.05 billion.

Chinese company Pegasus EastWest has purchased a 230 MW Combined Cycle Thermal Power Plant (TPP) in Gardabani, Georgia’s Kvemo Kartli region for $ 290 million. 

Saudi Arabian Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud paid an official visit to Tbilisi and discussed the country’s investment potential. Georgia-Saudi Arabia trade turnover was $ 3.6 million in the first four month of 2015.

The number of tourists who visited Georgia grew by 15% in May comparing to same period last month. In May, 454,545 tourists visited Georgia, according to country’s National Tourism Administration.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has provided Bank of Georgia with a 10-year subordinated loan totaling $90 million, of which $20 million was provided by the European Fund for Southeast Europe, in order to help expand financial services in Georgia and increase the flow of credit to micro, small and medium enterprises.

According to the National Statistics Service, Georgia's economy has slowed sharply to grow 2.6 percent in the first four months of this year compared with 6.2 percent in the same period last year.

Greece

The Organization for Economic Cooperation Development expects a decrease in its global growth forecast due to the result of a possible Greek default. OECD announced 3.7% expand in world economy last October, which has been modified to 3.1 %. 

After Alexis Tsipras’s announcement for a referendum in order to let Greeks decide about bailout plan, Greek banks are closed. Daily withdrawal limits are set at 60 €. 

Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Greece’s credit rating to CCC from CCC+ which pushes Greek bonds one step further into junk territory, with a negative outlook. 

Unemployment rate in Greece rises to 26.6% in the first three months of the year, which was 26.1 % in the previous quarter. 71.6% of 1.27 million jobless in Greece are long-term (at least 12 months) unemployed.

Romania

With the strong recovery in construction sector in Romania, Garanti Bank expects a 2.5% increase in country’s GDP this year. 3.6% rise in the constructions helped inflation rate to drop to 0.4% from 0.5 in 2014, according to the Bank. 

Romania is looking for new joint projects with Kazakhstan in terms of energy, tourism, transport, agriculture, research and education. Kazakhstan, one of the main exporters of Romania, had over $ 3 billion in 2014, whereas Romania replied with only $ 84.3 million with 60% increase. Romania’s main import area from Kazakhstan is oil, which is used by Rompetrol Group. 

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) plans to double its investments in Romania in next two years. With its 32 stations, the company hired around 500 people in Romania since 2011.

Rompetrol Rafinare, part of Kazakh group KMG International announced it completed 11 million worth investment targeting the reduction of powder emissions in the open air. The investment materialized in operating the first particle separation installation in Romania. 

Romania’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta is currently troubled with allegations of forgery, money laundering and complicity in tax fraud. Romanian economy is accepted as the second biggest shadow economy in European Union. 

Romania’s GDP amounted to some EUR 31.3 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 4.3% over the same period last year. Wholesale and retail trade, car and motorcycle repair, transport and storage, hotels and restaurants contributed 1% to the economic growth in the first three months. They had a 17.8% share in the GDP, and their volume of activity went up by 5.8%.

Since 2002, Romania has attracted € 22 billion foreign direct investment in energy sector. 

Canadian investment vehicle Transeastern Power Trust has agreed the acquisition of two solar parks in Romania, from RG Renovatio Group, for about $ 9.6 million (€ 8.5 million), excluding debt. 

Russia

According to the Central Bank of Russia, Russian banking sector reported net losses of 20 billion rubles ($380 million) in April.

After 2.7 % monthly decrease in March, Russia’s GDP shrank by 4.2 % in April compared with 2014.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that he had reached an agreement with Russia's top oil producer Rosneft in which $14 billion would be invested in Venezuela's oil and gas production. 

In order to boost army force, Putin plans to spend over $ 400 billion until 2020, although the country is in a recession. 

Deutsche Bank, one of the largest foreign securities firms in Russia, considers cutting about 100 jobs in Russia, due to the fact that country’s current performance in economy slowed dealmakers down. 

Saudi Arabia and Russia have signed a $10 billion memorandum of understanding between their public investment funds in yet another high level deal between the two countries.

Moody's Ratings Service has said that large Russian corporations have $ 40 billion worth of debt maturing this year and a further $60 billion of repayments due between 2016 and 2017. 

The World Bank has updated its economic outlook for Russia; the new most likely scenario is more optimistic and assumes an average oil price of $ 58.0 per barrel for 2015 and of $ 63.6 per barrel for 2016. On this basis, real GDP is projected to contract by 2.7 percent in 2015, before reaching 0.7 percent in 2016, and 2.5 percent in 2017.

Turkey 

Exporters Assembly of Turkey has expressed that Turkey’s exports decreased by 19% with $ 10.82 billion in May 2015, compared to last year. 

Turkcell, the biggest telecommunication company in Turkey, announced that they are buying out Ukrainian mobile network, Astelit, which trades under the "Life :)" brandname for $ 100 million. Turkcell currently owns 55.04% of the. 

Total R&D spend, including that of the private sector, in research and development in the country increased by 13.4 percent reaching 14.8 billion Turkish liras ($ 6.6 billion) in 2013 compared with the previous year. 

Sberbank agrees to lend funds for Istanbul's new international airport. According to the IGA website, the airport will contribute 22.2 billion euros ($ 25.3 billion) over 25 years to the Turkish state. It is estimated that 100,000 people will be directly employed at the airport, while 1.5 million others will be employed in sub-sectors. 

The Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM), a policy bank and government institution wholly owned by the Korean government, has provided credit of $280 million for the Eurasia Tunnel and a guarantee of $ 101 million for the third Bosporus bridge project. As of 2014, the number of Korean companies in Turkey was over 100 while the amount of the investments of Korean companies was over $1 billion in Turkey until last year. 

According to Invest in Turkey, an investment promotion agency that sits under the authority of the prime ministry, Turkey attracted $ 12.5 billion in total FDI in 2014 against $ 12.4 billion the previous year and $ 13.2 billion 2012. 

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) reported that Turkey's current account deficit dropped $ 1.5 billion to $ 3.4 billion in April, compared to the same month the previous year, yesterday. The 12-month rolling deficit decreased to $ 44.2 billion from $ 45.7 billion. 

According to World Bank, Turkey ranked second after Brazil in making the highest commitments for total infrastructure investments among 139 emerging countries in 2014. 

Turkey’s Central Bank expressed that the volume of direct Azerbaijani investments in Turkey has tripled compared to the same period of 2014, and stands at $ 277 million.

Ukraine 

Since the critical war with Russia is still on, IMF expects Ukraine’s economy to shrink 9 % this year and inflation to rise by 46 % at the end of 2015. 

Under the energy efficiency program, Ukraine hopes to receive € 400 million from European Investment Bank (EIB). 

Ukraine’s GDP contracted by 6.8 % in 2014 and expectation for this year is even worse: 9 % decrease.

Transparency International ranked Ukraine last in Europe according to their corruption perception index; the country’s performance is almost same with Nigeria and Papua New Guinea. 

According to World Bank data, Ukrainians working abroad contributed $ 7.5 billion annually to the country’s economy last three years. 

The EBRD provided a loan of up to $ 60 million to Brooklyn-Kyiv LLC, a leading private stevedoring company in Ukraine for a grain trans-shipment terminal in the Port of Odessa. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invested a record € 1.2 billion in Ukraine last year.