On 27 December 2006 a second passenger terminal started functioning at Sofia Airport. The new terminal has 38 check-in booths and seven passenger gateways.
According to Transport Minister Petar Moutafchiev, the new terminal will be able to manage annual passenger traffic of 2.6m people.
A number of aviation companies have already decided to move their activities to the new passenger terminal, among them Bulgaria Air, Cyprus Airways and Viaggio Air.
A new public transportation line has also opened, traveling directly from the city to the new terminal.
Greece signs €1.4bn deal for west coast highway
Greece has signed a €1.4bn agreement with a consortium of Greek and Spanish contractors to build a 382km highway along the country's western coast.
"The contract for the Ionian Road was signed today. It will be ratified in January by parliament and construction will begin in May", Environment and Public Works Minister Giorgios Souflias said.
It will build and operate the road, receiving toll fees for 30 years, investing a combined €1.15bn in the project. The remaining funds will be provided by the European Union and the Greek government.
The highway will connect the new Rio-Antirrio Bridge to the north western city of Ioannina, linking with the Egnatia motorway that will span northern Greece as far as the border with Turkey.
The Ionian project is expected to take six years to complete.
Peugeot Citroen plant to employ 3,500 people in Slovakia
In Trnava, Slovakia the recent opening of an $890m car factory by Peugeot Citroen is expected to employ up to 3500 people. Slovakia’s most senior government officials including the prime minister, as well as Peugot’s top executives, attended the inauguration of the new factory at the end of 2006. Unemployment in the small Slovakian town has now dropped to around 5%, from 13% three years ago.
Car production in Central and Eastern Europe (excluding Russia) is estimated to have exceeded 2.4m vehicles and millions of dollars have been invested by European, Asian, and US carmakers. By 2010, the Czech Republic could see its production alone doubled to more than 1m cars and Pricewaterhouse Coopers forecast that Eastern Europe could be producing 3.4m cars annually by 2010.
2004 EU entrants offer work to Bulgarians and Romanians
Upon the EU entry of Bulgaria and Romania, a number of older union members introduced labour market restrictions for workers from the two countries. However, the countries that refrained from introducing labour market restrictions include the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia, all of whom joined the EU in 2004 and have seen substantial emigration of skilled labour to Western Europe. The only ‘old’ EU members to allow Bulgarians and Romanians to work are Finland and Sweden.
The UK has introduced limited labour market access and low-skilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania will only be able to find employment in the agriculture and food processing sectors.
Qualified workers will be employed in the UK only if they meet a number of professional criteria and if employers cannot find suitable workers on the local labour market.
Bulgarian and Romanian students that study at an accredited university will be allowed to work for up to 20 hours a week.
Malaga train station to handle 24m passengers a year
The first stage of the new train station in Málaga was inaugurated at the end of 2006. The station, which will be reached by high-speed trains later this year, will hold eight times as many passengers as the old one, (up to 24m a year). The María Zambrano Vialia Station will take Málaga one step closer to becoming one of the major cities in Southern Europe.
Vialia Málaga will be the largest commercial transport centre ever built in Spain. For the rail services that are already in operation – commuter, regional and long-distance trains – it will add a high-speed rail link, bringing Málaga much closer to the rest of Spain and Europe.
The Vialia Project will give Málaga City a significant economic boost, since the station will feature a big shopping and leisure centre (with 102 retail units), an underground car park (for 1,300 vehicles), a Lux Cinemas complex (including 13 cinema theatres), a 3,000sqm professional bowling alley, and several restaurants. The complex will also have a four-star hotel with 222 rooms over seven floors. In addition, Vialia Málaga is expected to create 420 direct and 500 indirect jobs.
The new site will be five times larger than the old station, with 8 platforms instead of 5, and will increase the number of trains that can operate simultaneously by 60%.
There are also future plans to link the facilities to two underground metro lines.
Worldwide News
New international airport being planned for Mumbai
The Indian Government is considering building a large greenfield international airport in Mumbai, according to the Civil Aviation Secretary, Ajay Prasad.
Three sites around Mumbai are being assessed for suitability by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). But the proposal is still in its early stages and no timeframe has been set for the construction of the airport.
Meanwhile, upgrading works at Delhi Airport are expected to begin this year, with most completed in 2010. Delhi would be able to handle at least 80m passengers a year after the upgrade.
Apart from those two airports, Prasad said that the Government will invest £4.6bn over the next five years to improve the infrastructure of 30 other large and small airports in India.
US Slump to continue in 2007
Economists in the USA predict that the current housing slump will persist into 2007 and further damage the economy, (according to The Associated Press). They also say the US economy could grow at the slowest pace in five years.
The ongoing housing slump could lead to further job losses in housing-related industries such as construction, property/real estate agents and mortgage broking as well as those in furniture and appliance manufacturing.
Goldman Sachs economists estimate that job losses directly related to the US housing correction could total more than 1m over the next two years. Those layoffs could likely knock a full percentage point off the US gross domestic product in 2007 compared to 2006. The current GDP is 3.3%, based on their analyst estimates. A 2.3% growth rate would be the slowest since the economy grew by 1.6% in 2002 — when the US was emerging from recession.
The 2.3% growth estimate for US GDP indicates that economists aren’t expecting a US recession in 2007.
Global Insight’s economist, Nariman Behravesh, predicts the US economy will grow at a 2.3% rate in 2007 and points out that "the recession in the housing market does not seem to have had much of an impact on the consumer. The bad news on housing has been offset by good news on wages, jobs and the stock market."
But David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor, comments that there are still many risks which might affect US economic growth in 2007: "Betting that nothing goes wrong could turn out to be a bad bet. It wouldn't take much of a disruption in the Middle East to send oil prices back up again."
Global Resilience in 2007
Global residential property prices have defied the trend of rising interest rates in 2006, growing at more than 10% in many European countries, and many analysts still expect residential property values to remain resilient in 2007.
The most notable growth trend has taken place in Ireland, where house prices have more than trebled in real terms since 1992. Annual house price growth in the Republic accelerated again this year to 15% in the three months to September, compared with the same quarter last year, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. But in the final quarter of 2006, yet to be published figures on Irish resale properties are expected to show demand decreasing significantly, with growth of less than 1% over the Q4 2006 period.
The Spanish property market slowed from 13% annual growth last year to a still robust 10% this year says RICS, but some of the Costa’s have also experienced very slow resale markets throughout 2006. Annual house price growth in Canada, Norway and Sweden was more than 10%, according to the RICS.
In the USA residential prices have fallen in some cities, notably Detroit and Phoenix, and particularly in Florida and some parts of California.
John Calverley, an economist at American Express Bank recently said: “The US is the main area of weakness – there’s a big difference in what’s happening there, where the market is essentially flat, and elsewhere in (much of the developed world), where prices are quite firm.”
With the notable exceptions of Germany and Japan, many developed countries have been in the grip of a residential property boom since the mid-late 1990s. The OECD recently described this residential property boom as ‘unprecedented in its steepness, durability and geographical breadth’.
Bangalore International Airport continues to expand
The initial projection of 8m passengers a year at Bangalore International Airport has had to be revised to 11m and the cost is expected to increase from £161m to at least £234m. Bangalore International Airport Ltd has already been asked to prepare for a second phase expansion, soon after the first phase becomes operational in 2008.
