Section: Emerging Europe (UK)
IBA Group Opens Bulgaria Office
IBA Group – one of the largest IT service providers in Central and Eastern Europe – announced on April 2 that it had opened a new office in Bulgaria, in the city of Burgas, the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and the fourth largest city in the country. IBA Bulgaria is the fifth software development center of the IBA Group,...
Ukraine in NATO: Ambition Is Not Enough, We Must Deliver
NATO has recently updated its website to mention Ukraine as one of four aspirant countries. Ironically, several top Ukrainian officials jumped at the chance to portray this as a major breakthrough in getting closer to membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. In reality, nothing has changed. The only thing that NATO has done is to...
Ryanair to Begin Ukraine Flights
Ryanair flights will begin serving two airports in Ukraine from October 2018. Ryanair is expecting to deliver 800,000 customers per year, flying 10 new routes to Kyiv (from Barcelona, Bratislava, Gdansk, Krakow, London Stansted, Poznan, Stockholm, Vilnius, Warsaw and Wroclaw) and 5 new routes to Lviv routes (Dusseldorf, Krakow, London Stansted,...
KPMG Positive About M&A Growth in Ukraine
After successive years of decline, 2017 finally saw Ukrainian M&A return to growth, both in terms of deal flow (22 per cent) and the aggregate value of transactions announced (37 per cent). However, deal activity remains well below the recent peak of 2013, and at just under one per cent of GDP, Ukrainian M&A1 is four times lower than the...
Ukrainian Reform Programme Reaches Crucial Phase
Ukraine’s Cabinet Secretary Oleksandr Saienko told a meeting of donor governments in London on March 26 that the country had made good progress on a wide-ranging reform programme, and was ready to move to the next phase. “We have made good progress and now it is time to secure and expand our gains,” said Mr Saienko. “In phase two of the...
EBRD and EU to Support SMEs in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
The EBRD and EU announced on March 22 that they were extending their support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to a total of almost 1.1 billion euros in credit lines and trade finance, and 58.3 million euros in EU grants. Speaking at a conference in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, Deputy...
Ukrainian War Hero Arrested on Coup Charges
Ukrainian opposition MP Nadiya Savchenko was arrested on March 22 for allegedly preparing a coup d’etat against the Ukrainian government. Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) agents detained Ms Savchenko inside parliament, after fellow MPs in the Rada voted to strip her of her immunity from prosecution and authorise her arrest. According to the...
How Hungary Became a Tool of Kremlin Foreign Policy
At one moment a few months ago, the very tense relationship between Hungary and Ukraine seemed to improve slightly when the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s State Secretary for Parliament Relations Magyar Levente said, after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, that “I see a serious chance to leave this difficult period behind.” The optimism...
Destination Outsourcing
Listen first, then sell,” writes Timi Nadela, in her book, Get To The Top: It’s About The Heart Sell, Not The Hard Sell. And bearing in mind her experience as a senior business development professional working with Fortune 100 companies such as American Express, JP Morgan Chase, Delta Air Lines, she seems to know her subject. Do emerging...
Bucharest Remains Emerging Europe’s Cheapest City
For posted workers, the Romanian capital Bucharest is the ninth cheapest major city in the world, and the cheapest in Europe. Cheap rents, cigarettes and alcohol are just three of the factors in Bucharest’s favour, a city which is also by far the most livable of the cheapest 10 ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its latest...
