Finance

The Turkish Government, in an unprecedented decree, announced the transfer of its most valuable financial and real assets into a wealth fund on Jan. 5. For any ordinary Turkish citizen, the "transfer of assets into a fund" sounds a bit shady.

A Focus Bari survey conducted for Mastercard found that card transactions soared by 50 percent in January, the first full month since the implementation of a law that only allows taxpayers who pay for their purchases with plastic to qualify for an income tax discount.

Freelance workers who get paid by one or two employers through invoice books for services rendered (known as "blokakia") will now pay the same amount in social security contributions as salary workers, according to a circular released on Tuesday by the Labor Ministry in an effort to tackle the major practical problems generated by (as well as the huge reaction to) recent legislation.

A group of NGOs in Macedonia has given a recently formed movement, Stop Operation Soros, SOS, a week to apologise or face legal charges over its claims that local NGOs are receiving money from abroad to destabilise the country.

The government has transferred the public stakes in a number of major public companies to a recently established sovereign wealth fund, stating that the aim was to secure credit at lower rates for big projects by using the shares in these valuable companies as collateral.

In the two-month period up to January 9, 122,000 vehicle owners submitted their license plates, making for a significant loss of state revenues amounting to some 50-60 million euros, given that these are mostly vehicles with big engines and therefore high road taxes.

Romanian demonstrators welcomed the government's decision to scrap an emergency ordinance party decriminalizing abuse of office.

However, they added protests would continue until the ordinance was repealed.

On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said authorities had heard and seen "many options" and did not "want to divide Romania".

Senior bank officials point to a decline in deposits last month, which puts an end to the rising trajectory recorded in 2016. At the end of last year deposits had climbed by 4.3 billion euros from a year earlier to reach 121.4 billion.

Demand for gold rose in 2016 to a three-year high, aided by keen investment appetite for the precious metal, the World Gold Council said in a report on Feb. 3.

Total demand for gold, whose twin drivers are jewelry and investment buying, advanced two percent to 4,309 tons compared with 2015, the London-based industry body WGC said in a report.

BELGRADE - Despite media representing protests against US President Donald Trump as grassroots spontaneous uprisings, there is actually a significant amount of money being spent on special interest groups to keep the disruptions happening, Sputnik reports.