Bulgaria's finance minister, who was initially targeting rapid accession to the euro zone, has confirmed the country is in no hurry to adopt the single currency.
"We will not make any move toward the switchover in the next two years," Simeon Djankov told reporters in Vienna on Thursday.
The statement is in line with the opinion of local analysts, who have tried to tone down the cabinet's enthusiasm for adopting rapidly the common European currency, saying it makes more sense for the...
Bulgaria has registered an increase in its foreign direct investment in January-May 2012 year-on-year, according to the latest data of the Bulgarian National Bank released on Monday.
According to the Bulgarian National Bank's preliminary data, the foreign direct investment in Bulgaria for January - May 2012 increased by EUR 473.8 M (1.2% of GDP), compared to an increase of EUR 72.2 million (0.2% of GDP) for January – May 2011.
Bulgaria's attracted Equity Capital (acquisition/disposal of...
Bulgaria's Currency Board Is Super Stable
(Sofia, Jan 12) - "The currency board functioning in Bulgaria is super-stable," the monthly analysis of Raiffeissen Bank Bulgaria reads.
The experts have calculated that at the end of November 2012 the currency board's reserves amount to 15.1 billion euro, which is an increase by 2.2 million euro from a month ago.
The board's reserves have increased by 1.9 billion euro (14.4%) year-on-year, which is a surplus of about 89% to the minimum...
Wall Street legend and highly successful international investor, author and commodities expert, Jim Rogers has said he is considering investing in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria is among the few countries, in which he is considering investing right now, since they have made the most improvement since his latest trip around the world, the billionaire, currently based in Singapore, said in an interview for Gold Radio Cafй.
He joined the broadcast for a brief discussion on his new book "Street Smarts:...
Italian companies may be attracted in privatization projects, including for tourist sites, as well as concessions agreements and modernization schemes for airports, and construction and reconstruction of road and railway infrastructure in Bulgaria, according to Minister Bozhidar Lukarski.
Speaking Tuesday at the opening of an economic forum titled “Bulgaria and Italy: Together for Achieving Growth”, Lukarski pointed out that the trade and economic cooperation between Bulgaria and Italy...
“The opportunities OP Environment provides in the previous and the new programme periods establish prerequisites for a huge volume of work on designing and construction of ecological infrastructure as well as possibilities for the state to tackle challenges,“ said Ivelina Vasileva, Bulgarian Minister of Environment and Water, speaking at an annual conference themed “Strategic infrastructure and investments – Bulgaria and the Western Balkans“, FOCUS News Agency reported.
“In the...
The bids, which were submitted for a section of the future Struma Highway, connecting Sofia to the border with Greece, will be opened on Thursday, the road infrastructure agency announced.
A record number of bidders – 19 – applied with offers to build Lot 1 of the Struma Highway – including companies from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and Greece.
Regional Development Minister Rosen Plevneliev told journalists a month ago that the builder of Lot 1 will be selected by...
Bulgaria's industrial production increased by 7.8% in May 2011 year-on-year, according to fresh data from the National Statistical Institute.
Bulgaria's extraction industry grew by 20.8% in May 2011 compared with May of last year, while the energy sector grew by 12.7%, and the processing industry (manufacturing) – by 5.9%.
Compared with April 2011, the industrial production in Bulgaria is down 0.5%. The decrease, however, is primarily due to a decline in the energy output by 6%, while...
Bulgaria's Parliament has approved at second reading the founding of a State Company "Strategic Infrastructure Projects", a mega-structure to be in charge of the construction of three largely neglected highway projects.
The new body created with adopted amendments to the Roads Act will seek to accelerate the construction of "strategic infrastructure projects", namely the Struma Highway (running from Sofia to the border with Greece; expected completion date - 2014), the Hemus Highway (running...
Sisecam, Invest, USD, 60, M, More, Glass, Plants,Turkish industrial giant Sisecam is going to invest USD 60 M more in its production facility for household glass in Bulgaria's Targovishte through its subsidiary, Trakiya Glass Bulgaria.
The new investment will expand the existing household glass production line launched in 2005, and will add a second production line in Sisecam's glass factories in Targovishte, which taken together are the largest glass plant in the Balkans.
A total of 200...
Bulgaria is making definite steps to achieve a fourfold reduction in the amount of natural gas it is buying from Russia, according to an extensive publication by Russian paper Kommersant.
Looking at boosting its own gas production, but also at diversifying imports, Bulgaria hopes to achieve a reduction from the 2 B cubic meters of gas it buys from Russia per annum, to some 500 M cub.m in 2-3 years.
Bulgarian Minister of Economy and Energy has already declared Bulgaria's intention to give...
No final decision has been taken for the privatization of the postal service state-owned company "Bulgarian Posts EAD", the transport minister has said amid vehement protests from employees, trade unions and opposition leaders.
"The company will be taken off the list of firms, whose privatization is banned, just so that we can have that option available as well," Minister Ivaylo Moskovski said.
The amendments to the privatization law were tabled and adopted on the last day of June by the...
Bulgaria's wine exports registered a 6.6% increase in the first quarter of 2011 year-on-year, according to the Bulgarian Executive Agency on Vine and Wine.
In the first three months of 2011, Bulgaria exported a total of 10.375 million liters of wine, about 638 000 liters more than the 9.737 million liters in the first quarter of 2010.
The data of the Executive Agency on Vine and Wine indicate a slight shift in Bulgaria's wine export markets from Western Europe to Russia and the...
Five railway lines, all of them going through Sofia, have been declared to be of "national significance" by the Bulgarian government.
Three of the five railway lines in question are part of the so called Pan-European Transport Corridor No. 4 (from Central Europe to Greece and Turkey via Vidin and Sofia); namely, Sofia-Vidin (the port on the Danube in Northwestern Bulgaria), Sofia-Pernik-Radomir in Western Bulgaria and Radomir-Kulata (on the border with Greece).
The other two priority...
Societe Generale Expressbank is the winner in this year's contest for Bulgaria's "Bank of the Year", the Bank of the Year Association has announced.
Bulgaria's 14th annual Bank of the Year awards – first started in 1992 – were revealed at a news conference in Sofia on Wednesday in seven different categories, including the big "Bank of the Year" prize snatched by Societe Generale Expressbank.
UniCredit Bulbank, which landed the big prize last year, is now the winner in the "Client's...
Bulgaria's Cabinet has voted to turn the defunct military airport near the Black Sea town of Balchik into an active civilian airport serving the nearby sea resorts.
The Borisov government decided Wednesday to transfer the ownership of the Balchik Airport from the Defense Ministry to the Transport Ministry, acting in accordance that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov made in a nearby town, Kavarna, in early June 2011.
The Balchik Airport is located very close to the top resorts on Bulgaria's...
Bulgarian National Bank Governor Ivan Iskrov has expressed confidence about the stability of Bulgaria's banking system and the prospects for Bulgaria's economy despite the sovereign debt crisis in Greece.
Speaking at a round table taking place on the sidelines of the "Bank of the Year" ceremony, he emphasized that Bulgaria's capital adequacy stood at 15.36%, or three times over the EU minimum requirements.
According to Iskrov, Bulgaria's banking system includes no bad banks, which means...
The newly-appointed CEO of the vastly-troubled Bulgarian State Railways BDZ Yordan Nedev has declared his intention to break even in 2012, not in 2014, as his predecessor intended.
Nedev, a financier who was appointed to replace Pencho Popov as CEO of the state-owned BDZ Holding in a surprise move by new Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski, spoke for the first time in public at a round table on the reforms in BDZ in Sofia on Wednesday.
"I feel as if I am at war," Nedev stated. "We are...
Bulgaria's Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) has fined three companies which participated in the construction of desulphurization installations at the state-owned thermal power plant Maritsa East 2.
Consortium Idreco-Insigma, Zhejiang Zheda Insigma Group Co., Ltd, and Idreco Invest have been fined with BGN 50 000 each, according to CPC's announcement.
Consortium Idreco-Insigma won the public procuirement contract for building the desulphurisation equipment with financing from...
The average incomes of Bulgarians will surpass those of Romanians in two years, Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov vowed on Tuesday.
Djankov announced his ambitious plan speaking before the private bTV channel. He pointed out the Bulgarian GDP per capita expressed in Purchasing Power Standards is 43% of the EU average, while Romania's is just 2% higher, according to Eurostat.
In 2009, Bulgaria's GDP per capita expressed in PPS was a mere 37% of the EU average.
According to the...
The number of fully Romanian-owned companies who set up their headquarters in Bulgaria has increased eightfold over the past 5 years, according to Bulgaria's National Revenue Agency.
Thus, over 272 Romanian firms submitted corporate tax declarations to the Bulgarian tax authorities in 2010 compared with only 33 Romanian-owned companies in 2006, a year before Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, the press office of the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency announced Tuesday.
The largest number...
The Bulgarian subsidiary of Swiss-based engineering manufacturer ABB Group has marked the employment of its 1000th employee in Bulgaria, the company announced in a statement.
ABB Bulgaria has managed to accomplish the doubling the number of its employees within two years, thus securing jobs to a significant number of people, even in regions with a high unemployment rate. The company statement stresses its slogan "A better world begins with you".
Global engineering giant ABB has been...
Several months before the opening of the first IKEA store in Bulgaria expected in the fall of 2011, the Fourlis Group, IKEA's franchisee for Bulgaria through its subsidiary House Market, announced the opening of 130 part-time jobs.
IKEA's store in Sofia is seeking service and administrative employees that can work shifts of 4 to 6 hours a day, the company said in a statement, stressing that its new demand of flexible labor will boost the labor market in the Bulgarian market and will create...
Toshiba is going to perform a feasibility study for the construction of a coal-fired thermal power plant in Bulgaria that will feature carbon capture and storage facilities (CCS), the Japanese company has announced, apparently moving closer to a potential massive energy investment.
Toshiba Corp will inspect if a TPP with a carbon capture and storage facility could be built in the Maritsa East complex in southeast Bulgaria, which features a large-scale lignite coal mining complex and three...
A newly-discovered natural gas deposit near Lovech in Northern Bulgaria contains 10 billion cubic meters of gas, Bulgaria's Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism announced.
Traikov said that Bulgaria will soon be able to extract about 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, or about one-third of its annual consumption.
He spoke Tuesday night without providing details about the deposit near Lovech but he apparently referred to an area around the village of Deventsi in central...
Bulgarian trade unions have reacted harshly against recent indications on part of the government that it plans to privatize, fully or partially, Bulgarian Posts EAD, Bulgaria's state postal operator.
After on last week, the Economy Committee of the Bulgarian Parliament approved a bill providing that Bulgaria's postal service state-owned company "Bulgarian Posts EAD" will be taken off the list of companies banned from being privatized, together with three other companies, on Monday,...
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