Monopoly

The Elliniko development project is again key to the privatizations program's revenues projections, this time for 2018.

From the next month, the electricity price for industrial consumers will be increased by 30% to 60%. Currently, businesses pay electricity bills at a tariff of 70 BGN per megawatt hour. Business owners in the Northern Bulgarian city of Rousse say that the very announcement of the plans for the price increase has already had a negative effect on both producers and consumers.

Greece's biggest telecoms operator OTE posted a 2.3 percent drop in third-quarter core profit on Thursday, hit by what it described as challenging conditions in its international operations.

The privatization of the Thessaloniki Port Authority (OLTH) may add up to 1.6 billion euros to Greece's gross domestic product in the coming decade, according to an IOBE study.

''Bulgaria may fail to achieve even the forecast economic growth of around 3% in 2018'', said the economist Krasen Stanchev, according to FOCUS Radio's Good Morning Bulgaria.

The privatisation of state shares is banned, announced the Bulgarian Economy Minister Emil Karanikolov in the Council of Ministers today, reported bTV.

"All started procedures for the privatisation of state shares will be stopped immediatly", said the chosen from the "United Patriots" Karanikolov.

Constant contradictions from the government in regard to its position on investments and privatizations are taking a heavy toll on the economy and doing the country a lot of harm.

Fuels in Bulgaria may again begin to rise after the Commission for Competition Protection did not prove that there is a cartel in the industry, predicted the former MP Martin Dimitrov during an interview with radio Horizont.

Yesterday the anti - monopoly commission took measures to limit the exchange of information between the fuel retail chains.

The members of the political council of New Republic Petar Slavov and Martin Dimitrov have won the case against the refusal of the Finance Ministry to announce which firms own the tax warehouses for fuels and what their capacity is, announced the press centre of the coalition.

The Supreme Administrative Court has ruled that the minister must disclose the information within 14 days.

A 7.9 billion euro plan to turn a derelict former Athens airport into one of Europe's biggest coastal resorts, included in Greece's latest international bailout, will go ahead despite recent delays, a senior privatization agency official said on Saturday.