Istanbul was named as one of the planets best performing visitor destinations in 2011, primarily based on Mastercards new Worldwide Index of Worldwide Destination Cities, released on Wed.. The company anticipated that in 2011, Istanbul will be the city with the biggest growth in tourism expenditures up 30.1% compared to the previous year.

The Greek govt concluded on Monday (June 6th) to sell its ten percent percentage in Hellenic Telecomms (OTE) to Germanys Deutsche Telekom for 400m euros. After the deal, Greece will hold ten percent and one voting share in OTE, while Deutsche Telekom will control 40% and one vote. The remaining fifty percent are in the hands of global and Greek prescribed shareholders.

The Albanian lek hit an all-time new low Monday (June 6th), changing hands at 142.55 lek per Euro dollar. Compared to the start of 2011, the price of the euro has increased by four leks.

The official minimum wage in Bulgaria will be raised from around 120 EU$ to 135 euros, PM Boyko Borisov announced on Sunday (June fifth). He claimed the government will start procedures to implement the hike, which should take one or two weeks.

Web giant Google will open an office in Zagreb by the end of June, Croatian Times reported on Wed. (June 1st). The office will serve the organizations operations and provide local support to advertisers in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. Also, Croatia has plenty of wonderful summer destinations for visit. Many who come here, want buy some Croatia real estate. One of the few places left in Europe where purchasing a place or house close to the sea is still reasonable, Croatia enjoys acceptance with property buyers from all over the world who appreciate the chance to have a house in a lovely, principally unspoilt country and also by the fascinating potential investments returns.

It mustve been a dismaying prospect for the 1st foreign owners who started purchasing property in Croatia in the late 1990s : selling property was a novel experience for many Croats and there would be no help about what to do or where to go. However now things have changed considerably and there is a good deal of information available online about how to buy and how to navigate the bureaucracy.

One feature of the bureaucracy which is still proving irksome however is the requirement for foreigners to obtain executive authorization to own a property which can take anything from 18 months to three years to obtain, while it is never denied. This situation will continue for EU voters until 2009 when this law is lined up to be dumped as part of the EU advent arrangements. Until then customers have a second option of setting up a Croatian limited company which allows the purchaser to have instant possession. There are several firms who will perform this service including counsels, accountants and some estate agencies. The following table describes the pros and cons of the company route versus the non-public route.

An oddity of the Croatian property market is that when people would like to sell, they rarely give their property to one estate agent to market on an exclusive basis. Much more likely the seller will offer it to two or three agencies to sell, though its not uncommon for the property to be offered to 15 or twenty agencies! In any case, the property often finishes up in the hands of multiple agencies as the agencies who agree to try and market the property frequently pass it onto other agencies to maximize the amount of folks who will hear about the property. The agents share the commission when the house is sold, so this arrangement is in the sellers interest although it customarily implies that he doesnt have any idea who is advertising his property, and more confusingly at what price it is being offered.

To be fair to the agents, the seller regularly adds to the misunderstanding by telling the agents to add your commission on top. For some agents this suggests add 2%, but sadly for others it means adding 20% or more! Just to add to the perplexity, there are some sneaky agencies who pilfer the photographs and text from another agencys website and upload it onto their own site offering it at a very low price (that the seller would never accept) to attract consumers into the agency. Its easy to spot these rogue agencies because they know nothing about the property and if they do take you to see the property, they will not be in a position to show you inside!

The USAIDs Competitiveness Project Invention Centre has launched a new model to finance business start-ups in Macedonia. The 1st Business Angel Network comprises so-called angel investors businessmen and others willing to invest money, knowledge, abilities and social capital in fresh and leading edge business ideas with high potential. The network in Macedonia already has ten members, who are reviewing about twelve business suggestions.

Athens hosted a Hellenic-Chinese Business Forum on Monday (June 6th), drawing senior officials from over 60 leading Chinese corporations looking for business opportunities in Greece. Greece was represented by 187 enterprises. Areas of mutual interest include electrical and mechanical gear production, ship-building, energy, environmental technologies, telecomms, property and tourism.

Many Albanians working in Greece are making a choice to come home amid grave prospects and huge job cuts in the crisis-hit neighbor. Up to date data of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Gjirokastra showed clearly that during the past two months, 40 smaller firms have opened in the city. According to professionals, these companies were opened by returning expats, who are now investing their savings in Albania.

Kosovos Ministry of Industrial Development announced on Friday (June third) that two companies will be competing for the privatisation of Kosovos Post and Telecommunication Company (PTK). These are Croatias Hrvatski Telekom, which is the property of Germanys Deutsche Telekom, and Telekom Austria. Albanias Albtelecom, Egypts Oraskom and Yemens Saba Phone also filed documents in the tender for the countrys seventy five % stake, but failed to qualify, writes tagza.com.

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