All Countries and All Sectors

When hidden transactions are said to equate to anywhere between a quarter and a third of a country's GDP, any government should rightly get alarmed - and Bulgaria has been no exception in this regard. In the face of a number of seemingly troubling estimates of the scope of the country's dodgy accounting practices, the Bulgarian government has taken measures to ensure businesses pay the sovereign no matter what their accounts show. Problem is, trying to get a handle on the accuracy of grey economy estimates remains a controversial business.

While the heat wave this summer that hit continental Europe dried up rivers and left residents sweltering, it also had one positive spin off for Bulgaria. The country's energy exports received an unexpected boost - with the state provider grabbing an even larger share of the Balkan electricity market.

The latest and, according to many observers, most important meeting in the ongoing Doha Round of global trade talks opened in Cancun, Mexico on September 10th. As trade ministers from the World Trade Organisation’s member states arrived for what promised to be a tough week of discussion and debate, agricultural subsidies - that most stubborn of free-trade barriers - was on everyone’s mind. Almost two years after it was opened in the Qatari capital, the Doha Round has accomplished little. Farmers have proven a most resilient bunch and their sway in many of the world’s leading industrial countries threatens to undermine the wider aims of global free traders.

With the investigation into one of Turkey’s top business empires still widening and deepening, troubling revelations about the embattled Uzan Group have now led to bigger question marks over the general health of Turkey’s banking system.

Expectations are running high in Bulgaria’s press and official political circles concerning the possibility of establishing US military bases in Bulgaria under NATO auspices. While details still remain sketchy, surveys of possible base sites are known to have begun in earnest. However, the government of Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg still has not clarified where it stands on this politically volatile issue.

While the debate continues on what may or may not be the benefits to the UAE economy of reconstruction in Iraq, there has been plenty of construction going on much closer to home. With grandiose projects in tourism, transport, housing, health care and warehousing, the Emirates are turning into a gigantic building site, with one leisure complex even attempting to recreate the entire planet in miniature.