Weekly Review of the Slovene Economy from 16 to 22 March

Ljubljana, 24 March - The story that made the most headlines last week was the privatisation of NKBM, the second largest bank in Slovenia, after the commission supervising the sale of a 65-percent stake in the NKBM decided on 21 March that none of the bidders that submitted binding bids for the stake - Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Italy's Unicredito and Slovenia's Aktiva Group - meets the privatisation conditions. It is now up to the government to say the final word. In another privatisation story that has been protracting for the past decade, the assembly of the largest Slovene insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav decided to acquire fresh capital of EUR 33.4 million. The management's original proposal to supply EUR 78.1 million of fresh capital failed by two percent of the votes. The beginning of the week saw another meeting of Slovene and Croatian experts who discussed Croatia's regulations on the road transport of oil. The Croatian side has said it would make some changes to the disputed regulations, however is is still unclear what precisely the changes will be. Transport also made the Dolga vas-Redics border crossing with Hungary a hot spot for a while, as lorry drivers blocked the crossing for two days, displeased with long waiting times at the border and.