Business Dialogue - CorD Magazine No.173

Leaders’

MEETING POINT DEJAN VUKOTIĆ Director of the Serbian Export Credit and Insurance Agency

European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association

Best Support For Exporters

The State Of Digital Communications in 2019

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Integration

“Serbia is committed to participation with other Western Balkan partners in preparations for European integration, and reduction of roaming charges is one of the significant steps”. – TATJANA MATIĆ, STATE SECRETARY AT THE SERBIAN MINISTRY OF TRADE, TOURISM AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

LOCAL NEWS

GERMANY’S ZF GROUP

NEW FACTORY IN PANČEVO

BOYSEN

INVESTMENT WORTH €65 MILLION IN SUBOTICA Boysen, a German producer of exhaust systems for the car industry, is planning an investment of €65 million in the construction of a plant in Subotica, where it will employ over 500 workers over a period of five years.

The investment will be realized within the Mali Bajmok Industrial Zone, on a parcel of 10 hectares, which will be given to the investor for use free of charge. The plan is to build a production facility of 35,000 m2.

To that end, a study was prepared on the justifiability of alienating the land without a fee, which shows that the income for the City of Subotica, as the owner of the parcel, over the next five years will exceed its estimated value.

The final word on the study will be given by the City Assembly of Subotica and the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

Germany’s ZF Friedrichshafen, or ZF Group, plans to open a factory for electric vehicle (EV) parts in Pančevo, in northern Serbia.

In April, the Pancevo city government said ZF Friedrichshafen plans to invest a total of €85 million in the construction of the factory. The company started the construction works on the project in June 2018.

In June, ZF Friedrichshafen also plans to open a research and development (R&D) centre with 100 employees in Serbia, an investment project worth €160 million.

In the first phase of the development of the factory, the German company plans to produce electric shafts for premium original equipment manufacturers, E-Mobility electric motors, electronic and mechatronic gearboxes, microswitches and printed circuit boards.

TAKES OVER THE OPERATION OF AERODROM NIKOLA TESLA

Vinci Airports, the airport division of construction and concession company Vinci, has assumed the management of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.

In January 2018, Vinci Airports was selected as the preferred bidder for the Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport concession by Serbia and Airport Nikola Tesla (ANT).

The company was awarded a 25-year concession to run Belgrade airport in lieu of a one-time concession fee of €501m.

The French airport operator also agreed to invest another €732m in new infrastructure that includes financing, operation, maintenance, extension and upgrade of the existing airport terminal and runways.

Vinci will look to use its partnership with over 200 airlines to boost the airport’s traffic and connectivity.

Vinci Airports awarded a €262m contract to Greek construction company GEK Terna in January this year for the construction and refurbishment of Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Coca-Cola HBC

March

BEGINS PROCESS OF ACQUISITION OF BAMBI Coca-Cola HBC AG has begun the process of acquisition of the leading confectionery company Bambi from Mid Europa Partners, worth €260 million.

The final agreement will be defined later on, and the acquisition is subject to regular conditions and authorizations by the competent bodies, which is why the process is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2019. The strategic intention of the company is for this acquisition to provide it with new opportunities for development in Serbia and the region and the possibility of expansion to complementary product categories.

NEC VINCI

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COCA- COLA

TMS FOR TELEKOM SRBIJA NEC, a Japanese multinational provider of information technology services and products, has announced the provision of an advanced Traffic Management Solution (TMS) for Telekom Srbija, Serbia’s largest mobile operator. The system, which enables a high-level of data communications traffic control and improves the quality of experience (QoE) for users, is scheduled to begin operating in May and will be supplied through Mobycore, a Serbia-based system integrator.

TMS systems include the ability to apply optimum communication parametres depending on network characteristics and traffic conditions, as well as the ability to control re-transmissions due to packet loss.

NEC will also contribute to strengthening Telekom Srbija’s competitiveness by offering solutions that enhance network security using TMS.

Compromise

“Our official offer is to solve this (Kosovo) problem in the realistic way is to reach a compromise - but the idea has not been elaborated during the (Belgrade-Pristina) dialogue.” – IVICA DAČIĆ, SERBIAN FIRST DEPUTY PM AND FOREIGN MINISTER

Placements postings

&

appointments@aim.rs

CHEN BO, NEW AMBASSADOR OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO SERBIA

THE NEW MERCEDES-BENZ GLE

ALL KINDS OF STRENGTH The new Mercedes-Benz GLE has a wealth of innovations. The active suspension system E-ACTIVE BODY CONTROL on a 48-volt basis is a world first.

The interior is even more spacious and comfortable, with a third seat row available on request. The infotainment system has larger screens, a fullcolour head-up display with a resolution of 720 x 240 pixels and the MBUX Interior Assistant. The new 4MATIC ensures great agility on the road and superior performance off the beaten track. The GLE will receive a completely new range of engines.

In 1997 Mercedes-Benz founded the premium SUV segment with the launch of the M-Class. Since autumn 2015 the model family has borne the name GLE, emphasising its positioning as an SUV in the E Class model family. At present Mercedes-Benz is highly successfully represented with seven models in the SUV segment (GLA, GLC, GLC Coupé, GLE, GLE Coupé, GLS, G-Class).

The new Mercedes-Benz GLE will be presented to the public in Serbia for the first time at the 54th Begrade International Motor Show (20 to 31 March 2019). It will be in the dealerships in shotly after fair.

H.E. Chen Bo was born in January 1970 in the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where she completed her university studies. From 1992-96 she worked at the Directorate for Europe and Central Asia at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, before serving – from 1996-99 – as attaché and third secretary at the Embassy of China to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. From 1999 to 2004 she returned to the Directorate for Europe and Central Asia at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before serving as head of the Directorate for Europe at China’s MFA. She worked as an advisor-counsellor at the Embassy of China to the Republic of Serbia from 2006-08, before taking on the position of advisor and deputy general director of the Directorate for Europe at China’s MFA. From 2014-15 she was deputy to the Mayor of the City of Tangshan, Hebei Province, and from 2015-19 served as ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

ADOLFO ORIVE, NEW PRESIDENT & CEO OF TETRA PAK

The Board of Directors of the Tetra Laval Group has appointed Adolfo Orive as President and CEO of Tetra Pak as of 1st April 2019.

Orive, who arrives in Serbia from the position of vice president for the Cluster of North, Central and South America, joined Tetra Pak in 1993. He has previously held several management positions within the group, including serving as CEO of the cluster for Colombia and Spain, and vice president of the cluster for Northern and Central Europe. Orive joined Tetra Pak’s global leadership team in 2014. Orive (55) graduated in industrial engineering at Mexico’s Ibero-American University, before earning his master’s degree in business administration at the Institute of Technological Autonomy of Mexico (ITAM).

INFRASTRUCTURE

SERBIA TO INVEST €530 MLN IN NEW ROADS Serbia’s government plans to invest €530 million in the construction of a high-speed road linking Zrenjanin to Novi Sad and a Zrenjanin-Belgrade motorway.

Investment in the construction of the 56 km-long Belgrade-Zrenjanin motorway will total 280 million euro, while a further €250 million will be invested in the 50 km-long Zrenjanin-Novi Sad expressway.

The government is already in talks with Chinese partners for the construction of the Belgrade-Zrenjanin motorway.

Earlier this month, the Serbian government said it approved a project for the construction of a motorway rather than an expressway to link Belgrade to Zrenjanin, given the economic development of the Banat District. Chinese company ZORANA MIHAJLOVIĆ Shandong Linglong said in August it plans to invest $994.4 million in the construction of a tyre factory in Zrenjanin.

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DEJAN VUKOTIĆ, DIRECTOR OF THE SERBIAN EXPORT CREDIT AND INSURANCE AGENCY

Best Support For Exporters The Serbian Export Credit and Insurance Agency (AOFI) is the oldest, largest and most secure domestic insurer of exports. In its first year of operations, back in 2005, it approved the first six loans for Serbian exporters, while today there it has 288 clients and covers 188 countries with credit insurance

T

he AOFI isn’t a bank, though we provide similar products and use similar tools and techniques.

One of our services is “ino-factoring”, which helps exporters resolve liquidity issues and enables them to achieve the best possible position on a foreign market.

The AOFI is the Republic of Serbia’s only official export credit agency. What can of position do yo have in international frameworks?

Official export credit institutions (ECAs), like the AOFI, have a role in helping their national economies to grow in the country, on the one hand, and in helping domestic companies to succeed on the international front.

Moreover, by working together as a global network, export creditors worldwide share knowledge and help in the maintaining of international trade, which is also one of the goals that the AOFI needs to realise in its mission.

AOFI, as an active member of the Berne Union - the International Union of Credit & Investment Insurers, strengthens its position, and consequently the position of the Republic of Serbia, by following the direction and guidelines of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

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As a result of our work, we achieved our appointment as the chair of the Prague Club, one of the committees of the Berne Union. We signed and implemented several agreements with world-renowned state insurers during 2018, such as China’s Sinosure and Austria’s OeKB and OeEB, and we want to continue this growth trend during this

We signed and implemented several agreements with world-renowned state insurers last year, such as China’s Sinosure and Austria’s OeKB and OeEB, and we want to continue this growth trend

year by strictly respecting the interests of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

You also directed operations several years ago towards international factoring, while this year you’ve further improved that service. Has that eased or solved the problem of liquidity that our exporters often face?

Reducing the foreign trade deficit is one of the economic goals of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. And the AOFI, as the official export credit agency of the Republic of Serbia, is tasked with using its products and services to contribute to achieving this end. One of the services is also secure ino-factoring, which should help our exporters resolve their liquidity issues, on the one hand, and enable the achieving of the best possible competitive position on our market by extending payment deadlines for our customers, on the other. We improved results in this field during the course of 2018 and certainly contributed to the growth of Serbia’s exports.

Wherein lies the advantage of the AOFI compared to banking services?

The AOFI, as an export credit agency that’s owned by the Republic of Serbia, is not a bank, though we offer similar products and use similar tools and techniques. We strive to be competitive on the market, but that isn’t our goal in and of by itself – rather our goal is to increase the competitiveness of our clients on foreign markets. That’s precisely why our approach to clients encompasses the broader picture, and thus increases the space for support, which I consider as being one of our greatest advantages compared to banks.

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Mandatory things

“Bulgarians hate mandatory things. There are so many things that have to be solved that when I hear about Parliament I go around this. The word “mandatory” in particular is one I dislike.” – BOYKO BORISOV, BULGARIAN PRIME MINISTER

REGIONAL NEWS ROMANIA

MLEKOPRODUKT

KONUX, a Munich-based AI startup that provides smart sensor systems and AI-based analytics to railway companies, has raised a further $13 million in an extension of its Series B financing round, announced in April 2018, bringing the total amount raised in this financing round since last year to $33 million. The Series B round includes lead investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Upbeat Ventures, MIG AG and new investor Alibaba Group, the company announced.

KONUX was co-founded in 2014 by Germans Andreas Kunze and Dennis Humhal, and Romanian Vlad Lata, who is also the chief technical officer (CTO). The company combines smart sensors and AI-based analytics to enable higher train punctuality and network capacity through predictive maintenance planning and optimized utilization of railroads.

The company has engineering centers in Munich and Cluj-Napoca (Romania). The Romanian engineering team takes care of backend, DevOps and QA, according to a presentation on the company’s website.

Nine individuals from public, business and political life have been awarded with the medal of the “Brotherhood of St. Uguzon” in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to the promotion of cheese and cheese production. The first assembly of the International Cheese Guild in Serbia, and the 559th assembly generally, has been organised at the Embassy of France in Belgrade, according to the initiative of company Mlekoprodukt, a member of the Savencia Fromage & Dairy group. This occasion saw Belgrade visited by famous cheese expert and president of the guild Roland Barthelemy.

GERMAN STARTUP CO-FOUNDED

BY ROMANIAN RAISES $33 MLN

TEMENUZHKA PETKOVA

BULGARIA

REACHING ENERGY ENDEPENDENCE Local gas extraction in the Black Sea is among the most realistic types of diversification of energy sources towards which the Bulgarian government is striving.

According to Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova, this will help Bulgaria achieve energy independence. A drillship will begin deepwater exploration in the Khan Kubrat section, 120 kilometres off the Burgas coast, in a bid to reveal oil and gas deposits.

Minister Petkova noted that Bulgaria has developed, together with the European Commission, a strategy for the construction of a gas distribution centre in Bulgaria and local extraction is among the possible sources of gas for the future Balkan gas hub.

ANDREAS KUNZE (LEFT), DENNIS HUMHAL, AND ROMANIAN VLAD LATA

HUNGARY

BOSCH TO INVEST €44 MLN AT HUNGARY BASE German engineering giant Robert Bosch will invest 14.1 billion forints (€43.8mlm) at its automotive unit in the northeast Hungarian city of Miskolc.

Hungary’s government is supporting the investment with €8.3mln, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told the press conference.

Robert Bosch Energy and Body Systems makes vehicle parts, relays and electric drives. Among the parts it makes are next-generation products such as brake servomotors and ESP systems used in hybrid and electric cars. The current investment will add production lines for next-generation products as well as testing systems by 2021.

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INTERNATIONAL CHEESE GUILD NAMES SERBIAN MEMBERS FOR THE FIRST TIME

The brotherhood, which is part of the International Cheese Guild, accepted into its ranks French Ambassador to Serbia H.E. Frederic Mondolini, Serbian Economy Minister Goran Knežević, Guillaume Iskandar, head chef of Belgrade’s Langouste restaurant, Quentin Royer, president of company Delhaize, Goran Kovačević, general director of supermarket chain Gomex, Sreten Radović, director of publishing at Ringier Axel Springer, Igor Luković, editor of magazine Vino & Fino and member of the board of the Serbian Association of Sommeliers, and Thierry Leforestier, commercial director of the Savencia group. Mlekoprodukt CEO Andrej Beslać was awarded earlier that same day.

The newly named members are tasked with continuing to spread the tradition of cheese production and consumption in the community, thereby ensuring greater visibility for domestic products from this industry. According to Mlekoprodukt’s CEO Beslać, “Mlekoprodukt produces 7,000 tonnes of dairy products annually, a considerable portion of which is cheese, and this amount is rising constantly.

It is for this reason that the presence of this renowned Guild in Serbia, through its members from the local community, is very important.” He also emphasised that the establishing of an official Serbian chapter of the guild is planned, with the aim of developing the full potential of cheese production in Serbia.

The International Guild of Cheese has existed for more than half a century and has 7,000 members in 45 countries. During the event declaring new guild members from Serbia, guests had the opportunity to enjoy selected French and Serbian wines alongside Mlekoprodkt’s cheeses, including Biser Selekta, Ile de France, Caprice des Dieux and Le Rustique.

People

“Governments must operate of the people, by the people, for the people, therefore to create a framework in the migration issue one year before the elections is unfair, undemocratic. I urge Europe’s leaders to exercise restraint.” – VIKTOR ORBAN, PRIME MINISTER OF HUNGARY MONTENEGRO

INVESTMENT OF €4 MLN IN FIORTRESS OF MAMULA All the preparatory work on the territory of the ancient fortress of Mamula, which is located on Lastavica Island at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor, will be completed by the end of March, and also a showroom will be created on the island for the presentation of all the possibilities and the 3D model of the future hotel-museum Mamula.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

SARAJEVO CANTON JOINS EBRD GREEN CITIES With the launch of a dedicated action plan Sarajevo Canton has joined EBRD Green Cities, a framework helping cities to articulate a sustainable development vision and their strategic objectives as well as defining actions and investments necessary to address priority environmental issues.

As a first step the plan will identify the Sarajevo Canton’s environmental priorities using indicators developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an economic organisation, and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a global network of cities.

The aim is to develop long-term visions (10 years), mid-term targets (5-10 years) and short-term actions (1-5 years) together with local stakeholders, including civil society organisations. The action plan will be developed over the course of approximately 14 months before being considered for adoption by the Sarajevo Canton.

ALBANIA

YURA TO OPEN PLANT South Korean cable manufacturer Yura has been offered state-owned land to build a factory in return for investment of around €13 million and creating an initial 600 jobs, in the first Albania investment of a company that is already present in the region. Yura Corporation has been offered a 4.9 hectare area just outside Fier, the country’s third largest city, to build its first Albania plant, in an initial €6.5 million investment which the company plans to double to €13 million in order to increase jobs to 1,100, says the Albanian finance ministry.

“After also studying other regional countries, we picked Albania to invest because of its qualified labor force, competitive costs, geographical position, incentives and support by the Albanian Investment Development Agency,” said Yura representative Lukas Nam. The Albanian government says Yura plans to open two new plants in Albania and create a total of 4,000 jobs. Albania offers one of the region’s lowest labor costs with minimum wage at €210.

According to the information provided by the investor, the company Orascom Hotels Management Mamula Montenegro, this year €4 million will be invested in the reconstruction of the Mamula fortress and the construction of the five-star hotelmuseum Mamula. This year, it is planned to invest €160,000 for the reconstruction and expansion of the pier in the village of Miriste, as well as to ensure constant power supply, an electric network will be built to the Mamula fortress from the neighboring Cape Arza, for which another €500,000 will be allocated. The tenant paid the state an annual rent of €47,772 and invested €869,932. In total, at the moment, €2,103mln were spent on the project of the five-star hotel-museum of Mamula.

NORTH MACEDONIA

MEMORANDUM ON COOPERATION IN ENERGY SECTOR WITH KOSOVO Skopje and Pristina will realize joint energy projects. This was said in a meeting held between North Macedonia’s economy minister, Kreshnik Bekteshi and Kosovo’s economy KRESHNIK BEKTESHI AND VALDRIN LLUKA minister, Valdrin Lluka, who signed a memorandum of cooperation in the energy sector.

The first project to be implemented is the upgrade of the 220 kV transmission line between North Macedonia and Kosovo. Invitation of bids to build solar power plants backed by feed-in premiums will be issued very soon.

In December last year, the Steering Committee of the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) has decided to grant a €1 million for the feasibility study and the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) study for HPP Čebren.

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EUROPEAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK OPERATORS’ ASSOCIATION

The State Of Digital Communications in 2019

Digital is everything and everything is digital. As our societies and economies experience unprecedented tech-driven change, this Report provides you with the latest on one of the most important enablers of progress and growth: digital communications

E

uropeans enjoy a dynamic telecoms sector, which has delivered, over the years, on a series of key economic and societal enablers.

In terms of direct impact, we note that broadband coverage is high (almost 97%), speeds are higher than he global average (70.5 MB for fixed, 34.9 MB for mobile) and infrastructure competition is vibrant. In terms

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of indirect impact, ETNO members created a yearly €139.4bn value added (including salaries, interest, …) and paid over €42bn of taxes.

When looking at telecoms investment and spend, however, the European sector appears less healthy than global peers. CapEx per capita in Europe is €83.2, which is less than half than in Japan (€188.5) and lower than in the USA

(€135.3). In addition, Europeans use less (and hence spend less on) telecom services, with the average European telecoms spend per capita at €30.1, as opposed to over €70 in the US, €52 in Japan and €57.4 in Australia. This ultimately means that the investment capacity of the industry is being put under pressure, with the CapEx/revenue ratio at 18%. Our ability to deliver faster and more roll-out for

Europeans is hampered by these dynamics.

European users’ needs are being met by a fast evolution of the telecoms offer. In terms of technology, the total number of 4G connections keeps on rising steadily also in 2018, connections to faster fixed technologies continue growing (fibre, cable, VDSL) and so does data usage for both mobile and fixed.

In terms of commercial offers, fixed-mobile convergence is strong, with a growing take-up of converged services, as consumers seek to reduce complexity and get a better value.

Despite strong competitive pressure from OTT video offers, the operators’ video offer is expected to continue growing in the coming years and it has grown over €1bn for the first time in 2019 (Western Europe).

When looking at businesses, the IT services offer has significantly expanded over the past years, with a diverse portfolio that includes cloud, security, unified communications, enterprise services and others. Similarly, the growth of IoT is continuing with IoT revenues expected to reach €5.2bn by 2025.

Automotive, smart buildings and utilities are expected to be among the top contributors to this growth. 5G technology is happening, it will empower a wealth of consumer and business activities, and become a central infrastructure for growth and economic progress.

The work to make fixed and mobile networks come together into 1 smart 5G network is well underway. Network virtualisation, edge computing and further mobile and fixed network investment will enable both superior retail broadband services and a new, central role in the industrial value chains.

Along with further fixed investment, spectrum is the lifeblood of 5G deployment. Unfortunately, the auctioning process is not always as timely. Only a few European countries have already concluded the relevant spectrum auctions: only 6 European countries for the 700MHz, only 4 for the mmWave and only 3 for all the 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7GHz bands.

The price tag for acquiring spectrum rights remains high, especially if we consider that the real network investment can only come after spectrum has been awarded. Since 2000, European telcos have spent €110bn on 3G bands, €37.6bn on 4G bands and – while at the very beginning of the process – they have

already spent €12.4bn in 5G bands. From this viewpoint, both the conditions attached to the licenses and the design of the auctions remain crucial to ensure that investment incentives are not hampered.

Telecom operators are transforming into fully digital agents, with a realignment of the

When looking at businesses, the IT services offer has significantly expanded over the past years, with a diverse portfolio that includes cloud, security, unified communications, enterprise services and others

relationship between the infrastructures and the broader digital ecosystem.

This transformation builds on three main enablers: superior networks, network-enabled services beyond just commodity, and service-based collaboration with the digital ecosystem.

Ultimately, networks will become platforms

and they will be characterized by a higher degree of openness, which will in turn enable an intense collaboration with verticals and with the broader ecosystem.

However, a challenging competitive environment awaits, and it has not been fully recognised by regulators and policymakers

yet. Networks, in Europe, are highly regulated.

At the same time, competition in the telecom sector now happens on 3 levels: on the top, with tech companies absorbing further value and potentially disintermediating some telecom functions. On the side, with alternative operators who rely on regulated access, but also on consolidation, which brings stronger competitors to the table. Below, with increasing investment in entities deploying pure fibre and adding to the infrastructure competition game.

Policymakers hold some of the key levers in the game: for example, market structure, spectrum auctions, licence conditions, barriers to deployment, proportionate fixed regulation, service regulation. A factual recognition of the competitive environment will help determine whether the outcome of the current market trends is a stronger or a weaker sector. With 5G and the digital transformation of society in the making, this is going to be a key strategic challenge in defining Europe’s place on global stage.

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Progress

“In Europe there is no progress if nations are fighting against each other.

There is no progress if there is hatred in the world. We had this in Europe.

Enough is enough.” – JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER, PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

WORLD NEWS JAPAN

AUTO UNIONS SUBMIT HIGHER WAGES DEMAND

ITALY

TALKS WITH DELTA & EASYJET FOR ALITALIA STAKE CONFIRMED Italy’s state railway has confirmed it is in talks with Delta Air Lines and EasyJet as possible industrial partners in relaunching the troubled Alitalia airline.

The state railway was given a lead role in taking over Alitalia, which struggled amid competition from low-cost carriers and has failed to come up with a sustainable plan to establish Italy’s flagship airline as a long-haul player.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte’s office said that it is ready to participate in establishing a new company to run Alitalia as long as the new business plan is sustainable and follows European guidelines.

Italy’s government has been shopping around Alitalia’s assets since the airline declared its latest bankruptcy two years ago.

The labour unions of major Japanese automakers submitted pay increase requests to their employers for annual “shunto” spring wage talks.

All unions except that of Toyota Motor Corp. called for a pay-scale hike of ¥3,000 (€24) a month, unchanged from the previous year’s requests. They requested a pay-scale increase for the sixth straight year.

The request was submitted by the unions of Toyota, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. The Toyota union did not specify any amount of pay-scale increase that it wants. Instead, it demanded a total monthly wage increase, also including a regular rise, of ¥12,000 (€96) on average among unionised workers. It is unusual for a major labour union to demand a wage hike without specifying any requested amount of pay-scale increase.

Toyota and four other major Japanese automakers are struggling with increasing uncertainties over U.S.-China trade tensions and Britain’s exit from the EU.

GERMANY

RUSSIAN-GERMAN TRADE TURNOVER’S RAPID GROWTH Trade turnover between Russia and its second largest trade partner, Germany, increased 8.4 per cent and reached nearly €62 billion in 2018 compared to the previous year, according to the German trade lobby.

Year-on-year imports from Russia to Germany expanded 14.7 per cent, amounting to €36 billion ($40 billion). Exports to Russia rose 0.6 per cent to €25.9 billion, reported the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, which represents over 800 German firms.

“German business has successfully increased exports to Russia despite the market difficulties, sanctions and countersanctions. This has also improved our expectations for 2019,” said the chairman of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Matthias Schepp, in a statement. The trade turnover between Beijing and Moscow also surged by 24.5 per cent last year to €95.8billion, with €49.7 billion of it amounting to Russian exports to China. This is the first time since 2006 that Russia has had a trade surplus with its Eastern partner.

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10 TIPS

TO IMPROVE BUSINESS EFFICIENCY Your company is running smoothly enough, but you know things could be better.

Here are 10 tips on how you can keep your businesses running efficiently.

1. Automate whatever tasks you can 2. Encourage your employees to chat face-to-face 3. Limit interruptions 4. Hold a daily, 10-minute company meeting 5. “Single-task” to get more done 6. Discourage “Got a minute?” meetings 7. Stick with the established process 8. Use a task management software 9. Promote a culture of open communication 10. Know when to stop

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Enterpreneur MICHAEL JORDAN

Turning Weakness

Into Strength

Michael Jordan was not always destined to become an NBA player, let alone an NBA superstar. Growing up, Michael was the ‘goofy’ kid who liked basketball. He wasn’t very tall and didn’t come from an athletic family. He was determined, he had many setbacks and failures, but his hard work eventually paid off. For every weakness, Michael found a way to turn it into a strength and he never gave up. Today, we know him as the greatest basketball player of all time and one of the world’s richest athletes 48

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“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying, said” - Michael Jordan When Michael first entered the league, his jump shot was not good enough. So, he spent his off-season practicing hundreds of jump shots every day until they were perfect. In high school, Michael was even rejected from the basketball team.

For every weakness, Michael found a way to turn it into a strength and he never gave up.

Today, we know him as the greatest basketball player of all time. Michael Jordan was born on 17th February 1963, in Brooklyn, New York, one of James and Deloris Jordan’s five children. His father taught him to work hard and not to be tempted by street life. His mother taught him to sew, clean, and do laundry.

Jordan loved sports but failed to make his high school basketball team as a sophomore. He continued to practice and made the team the next year. After high school he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina, where he played under head coach Dean Smith.

In Jordan’s first season at North Carolina he was named Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Rookie of the Year for 1982. The team won the ACC championship, and Jordan made the clutch jump shot that beat Georgetown University for the championship of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Jordan left North Carolina a year early to enter the 1984 NBA draft, where he was selected third overall by the Chicago Bulls. Two years later, he would return to North Carolina and complete his degree in geography.

At that time Chicago Bulls were a losing team, but Jordan quickly turned that around. His incredible leaping ability and hang time thrilled fans in arenas around the league. In his first season he was named to the All-Star team and was later honored as the league’s Rookie of the Year.

In 1993, after a tough playoff series with the New York Knicks, the Bulls met the Phoenix Suns for the NBA championship. When it was over, Jordan was again playoff MVP, and Chicago had won a third straight title. That summer Jordan’s father, James, was murdered by two men during a robbery attempt. Jordan was grief stricken, and his father’s death led him to announce his retirement from professional basketball in October.

Jordan had won three straight NBA titles, three regular season MVP awards, three playoff MVP

titles, seven consecutive scoring titles, and he was a member of the All-Star team every year that he was in the league.

By the time Jordan left the NBA in 2003, he had made just over $94 million for his time on the court for the Chicago Bulls, and later the Washington Wizards.

Although he hasn’t played professional basketball since 2003, his fortune is growing at an even faster clip than during his playing days.

One reason for that is that his reputation and his brand as a basketball superstar continues to sell products. In 2014 alone, Jordan made more than $100 million from the use of his likeness by a variety of products.

His earnings in the endorsement arena

stretches back more than 30 years to the beginning of his basketball career, in 1984. Just out of school and in the NBA for his rookie season, the 21-year-old Jordan signed a five-year, $2.5-million deal with Nike Inc. (NKE), which created the now-iconic Air Jordan basketball shoe. In 1996, he starred in the feature film “Space Jam,” which earned over $230 million worldwide at the box office.

By 2013, Nike had made the wildly successful Air Jordan shoe and apparel business into a separate entity, called the Jordan Brand. In 2013, Jordan made a reported $90 million from his relationship with Nike.

Between 2000 and 2012, Jordan made $480 million from his affiliation with Nike. But he also

MICHAEL JORDAN AT A COUNTRY CLUB IN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Although he hasn’t played professional basketball since 2003, his fortune is growing at an even faster clip than during his playing days

took home $18 million for endorsing Gatorade, $14 million from trading-card brand Upper Deck, and another $14 million from underwear giant Hanes (HBI), along with $10.6 million from XEL, a kind of cologne (which reportedly sold 1.5 million bottles in its first two months).

Before 2000, however, Jordan had been the nearly omnipresent face of a host of major American brands, endorsing Coca-Cola Co. (KO), Chevrolet (GM), Gatorade (PEP), McDonald’s (MCD), Ball Park Franks (TSN), Rayovac (SPB) and Wheaties (GIS). And he

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Enterpreneur is very protective of his brand. In recent years, Jordan sued Dominick’s Finer Foods, a bankrupt Illinois supermarket chain, for using his name and picture on a 2009 steak coupon.

With the fortune he’d made from endorsements and playing in the NBA, Jordan purchased

yacht. He splits time between a custom-built $12.8-million mansion on a golf course and a $2.8-million lakefront house in Charlotte, after selling his 56,000-square-foot mansion in Highland Park, Illinois, for $29 million.

While Jordan’s fortune has grown steadily

TIME OF GLORY AT CHICAGO BULLS

a stake in the Charlotte Hornets basketball franchise in 2006. Four years later, Jordan bought out the majority shareholder to become the first former NBA player to become the majority owner of a franchise, at the right time, as the values of NBA franchises have since skyrocketed, driving Jordan’s net worth past the $1 billion mark in 2015. In 2010, when he became the majority owner of the Hornets, the average value of an NBA franchise was $367 million.

By 2015, thanks largely to a much richer television contract with ESPN (DIS) and Turner Broadcasting (TWC), the average value of a team has grown to $1.1 billion.

The Hornets are no exception, with the new TV deal set to pour an extra $57 million into its coffers annually. The completion of the deal increased the value of the team from $410 million in 2014 to $725 million in 2015 Jordan enjoys a host of luxuries in his daily life, including his own private jet, which he had painted Carolina blue, and a 47-metre-long mega-

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A fierce competitor with a carefully honed persona, and despite his gambling habits, Michael Jordan owes much of his endorsement career to his relatively clean public image since 1984, there was one notable exception: the year 2007. That’s when he divorced his wife of 18 years, Juanita. She walked away with a record-setting divorce settlement of $168 million.

A fierce competitor with a carefully honed persona, and despite his gambling habits, Michael Jordan owes much of his endorsement career to his relatively clean public image. That

image, however, has taken a few hits over the years due to Jordan’s taste for gambling.

In 1992, when Jordan was on the Olympic Basketball team playing in Barcelona, he would join Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley in all-night poker games. One of these high-stakes games went until 6 am, after which the three NBA legends slept for an hour and defeated the Croatian team for the gold medal by a score of 117 to 85.

According to observers, Jordan was playing craps almost nonstop at a Las Vegas casino during the 2007 NBA All-Star weekend. Jordan, who wouldn’t allow anyone else to roll the dice, reportedly lost over $5 million in a single night.

In 1993, after a tough playoff series with the New York Knicks, the Bulls met the Phoenix Suns for the NBA championship. When it was over, Jordan was again playoff MVP, and Chicago had won a third straight title. That summer Jordan’s father, James, was murdered by two men during a robbery attempt. Jordan was grief stricken, and his father’s death, combined with media reports about his gambling, led him to announce his retirement from professional basketball in October.

Jordan had won three straight NBA titles, three regular season MVP awards, three playoff MVP titles, seven consecutive scoring titles, and he was a member of the All-Star team every year that he was in the league. In just nine seasons he had become the Bulls all-time leading scorer.

Earlier last year, Michael Jordan joined one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. Thanks to the skyrocketing value of NBA franchises over the last few years, MJ’s 90 percent ownership stake in the Charlotte Hornets earned him a spot on Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s billionaires. Jordan is now a part of the gallery that also includes the President, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, various members of the Walton family, Oprah, Elon Musk, the Koch brothers and other achievers, inheritors, miscreants and scoundrels. According to Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, Jordan is the 455th-richest person in the U.S. That ranks him as only the world’s 18th-richest person named Michael, behind Bloomberg, Dell and 15 others.

Next up for Michael Jordan is converting his longtime obsession with golf into reality in the form of a golf course. The course will be built in Hobe Sound, Florida, which is just north of West Palm Beach, and it will reportedly open in 2019.

PROFILE

What Does It Mean To Be Happy?

Photo credit Nebojša Babić

I want to integrate everything that fulfils me and is important to me in order to create a whole in which I enjoy and which works

MARIJA DESIVOJEVIĆ CVETKOVIĆ, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF DELTA HOLDING

I

follow with interest the trends of businessliterature over recent decades.

From the Six Sigma programme and “benchmarking”, through the Balanced Scorecard, at the beginning of the 21st century we got to the subject of leadership, and today, apart from digitalisation, the most common term encountered at conferences and lectures, and in books and magazines, is happiness.

What is it that business gurus are trying to tell us? In chasing success, have we forgotten about that which makes us alive and that which we’ll regret when there’s no more time? What does being happy mean to each of us? Can a woman who combines, on a daily basis, nurturing her family and raising her children, a responsible job, socialising with friends, travelling and other activities that she enjoys, be happy? Am I happy?

I don’t view my life as a see-saw that needs to be titled to one side or the other: obligations or satisfaction (among other things,

on which side of this are children?), work or holidays, travel or friends. I think that what we’ve long since referred to as the worklife balance is a false and outdated notion.

I don’t want to balance between being a good mother and a good manager, or a leader at Delta Holding. I don’t want to balance between creating good people out of my children and shaping young people in the company into good personnel who will very soon lead the company. I don’t think there’s a need to strike a balance between business trips and climbing the Himalayas or the Andes. I don’t think there’s a juxtaposition

I don’t view my life as a see-saw that needs to be titled to one side or the other: obligations or satisfaction (among other things, on which side of this are children?), work or holidays, travel or friends. I think that what we’ve long since referred to as the work-life balance is a false and outdated notion

between my business training at Harvard Business School and my swimming, running and cycling training.

All of these things comprise my life, and I believe the lives of many businesswomen look similar. Those are the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle that wouldn’t be complete without those pieces.

That’s why I don’t want to balance and measure days on the basis of which side of the see-saw is prevailing. I want to integrate everything that fulfils me and is important to me in order to create a whole in which I enjoy and which works.

I don’t consider happiness as a fleeting feeling; as a set of moments that are actually just having fun or satisfying current desires.

Happiness is a state of being, something that exists in us and represents internal peace with ourselves, and with all the choices that we make every day. Happiness is being self realised in your work, continuously learning, advancing, researching and creating new values. Happiness is giving back to the community in which we live and work.

Happiness is creating deep, high-quality and enduring emotional relationships with friends and family. Happiness is living in harmony with nature, engaging in sports and passing the finish line of a marathon. At the end of the day, the greatest happiness is when you arrive home after a day spent at work and are awaited there with the question “Mum, what are we going to do today?”

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