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News - Archive
01Jun. 2008 Bulgaria Work for SAPARD Receives Good Mark from EC The representatives of the Main Directorate "Agriculture" at the EC have given a good mark for Bulgaria's work in the SAPARD program.
This statement was made by Depute Prime Minister Meglena Plugchieva in front of Cyril Vulchev, host of Darik radio's Saturday show "The Week".
Plugchieva admitted that the auditors have found some oversights but qualified them as minor. The Depute PM expressed optimism regarding measures undertaken by the Cabinet for optimising the SAPARD program as well as the two other EU ones - ISPA and PHARE.
"The measures are successful and what we need now is intense work", Plugchieva said.
She declined to state the exact amount of the funds that have been put on hold by the EU for different programs.
The ISPA funds were put on hold, but with the new measures regarding the Road Agency, we expect that they become available soon", Plugchieva commented, adding that we must also secure the PHARE funds since they amount to about EUR 280 M to be absorbed till the end of the year.
"The task related to SAPARD is enormous since there is a large amount of money to be absorbed and this requires intense labor on the part of State Fund "Agriculture" in June and July", Plugchiveva explained. She pointed out that there was a request already submitted with the EC for extension of the absorption deadline till the end of 2009.
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May. 2008 Bulgaria tops Global House Price Index Price increases in the lodging property sector worldwide slowed down in the first quarter of 2008 to reach 6.1 per cent on an annual basis. But Bulgaria still heads the price hike, according to the Global House Price Index of UK’s real estate company Knight Frank.
The price increase registered in Bulgaria was 31.5 per cent for the first quarter of 2008, investor.bg said. Bulgaria also occupied first place in the same ranking for the last quarter of 2007 with a 33.7 per cent price increase.
Singapore ranked right after Bulgaria with a price increase of 29.9 per cent year-to-year, followed by Hong Kong with 28.8 per cent.
The other EU member state, which featured highest in the list, was the Netherlands, which occupied 14th place with an increase of 4.5 per cent.
The property market in Latvia registered a 20 per cent decrease in prices after an increase of more than 60 per cent over the same period in 2007, investor.bg said.
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May. 2008 Simeonovo River Park to cost 100M euro Sofia's future Simeonovo River Park residential development will cost about 100 million euro to build, Ivo Koloushev, director of Bulgarian developer Litos, told SeeNews newswire.
The company controls a 50 per cent stake in the project and the remainder is in the hands of an unnamed foreign investor.
Simeonovo River Park, whose construction began earlier this year, is due for completion in three years’ time. The project will spread over 248 000 sq m and will have 207 houses. Another 97 000 sq m will be occupied by maintenance space. Half the space is intended for parks and greenery comprising pedestrian and bike alleys, tennis and basketball courts.
It will also contain a supermarket and restaurants.
Litos is currently developing two similar complexes in Sofia. Its asset portfolio is completed by a hotel in Bansko.
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May. 2008 Construction of Central Life City Estates begins On May 28, Nike Investment Group turned the first sod of their project Central Life City Estates in Sofia’s Tsar Simeon street.
The development will have 27 residential and four retail units on total built-up space of 4000 sq m. Prices of the apartments in the development start at 1500 euro a sq m, but the final price will be calculated separately for each unit. Each residential unit has a garage and 60 per cent of them were already sold out, the company said in a statement.
Central Life has 14 one-bedroom apartments, nine two-bedroom apartments, two studio apartments and two penthouses. Each residential unit has a balcony and heating system
All retail parts of Central Life will be rented out. Nike Investment has no intentions to sell them so far. The investor offers buyers the option to do the interior design in the new residential units.
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May. 2008 Mall Stara Zagora to cost 72M euro, open doors in 2010 Real Estate Services Bulgaria, developer of retail complexes Mall of Sofia, Mall Plovdiv and Mall Rousse, announced plans to build a fourth retail-entertainment complex in Stara Zagora, RESB said in a statement.
RESB will be partnering with food processing company Gradus-1 OOD, one of the leading companies on the Bulgarian poultry market. The 72 million euro project was showcased on May 27 in Stara Zagora to city officials, among them mayor of the town Svetlin Tanchev.
The mall is scheduled to open doors in 2010. The company would not say when construction would begin.
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May. 2008 RENTAL PRICES HIGHEST IN VARNA, LOCAL DAILY SAYS Rental prices in the city of Varna/popular as the sea capital/ on the Black Sea were the highest in the country, local Narodno Delo daily reported.
According to the paper, luxury apartments registered the highest increase, 22.1 per cent, compared to May 2007. Rents of unfurnished housing went up by 19 per cent, while furnished ones increased by 17 per cent.
Two-bedroom apartments were the preferred choice of customers, Narodno Delo said. Currently the renting price of two-bedroom apartments in the city's downtown area around the Red square started from 300 euro a month.
In the more remote boroughs, such as Mladost and Vuzrazhdane, the price was about 250 euro a month.
The rental price of a newly-built house of 250 square metres in the city's seaside vacation community of Trakata was about 2500 euro a month, the paper said. A floor of such a house could be rented at 1700 euro a month.
The average time line of a renting contract for a two-bedroom apartment was about a year, while houses in Trakata were usually rented for the summer season, real estate brokers told the paper.
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May. 2008 Emirates Company to Invest in Luxury Real Estate in Sofia The "Emirates Investment Company" will invest in the construction of a congress center and luxury hotel in the Bulgarian capital, said the company's owner, sheik Tarek Al Qassimi after the conclusion of his meeting with Sofia's mayor Boiko Borissov.
Sheik Al Qassimi who is member of the royal family in the Sharjah emirate of the United Arab Emirates is on a visit in Bulgaria with the goal of investigating possibilities for jointly funded public-private projects.
The "Emirates" group invests in luxury real estate, insurance and airplane construction. According to Borissov they are interested in the same activities in Bulgaria.
"In the upcoming months and years, especially in Sofia's northern areas, since I am convinced that "Kremikovtzi" is not going to exist in its current condition, a huge possibility for public-private partnership is going to present itself along with the extension of the metro lines in this direction, and we will be looking for investors of the class of the "Emirates", stated Sofia's mayor.
According to the sheik, the precise investment intentions of his company will become clear in a month with their amounts depending on the projects themselves. He cited the fact that the profitability of investments in Bulgaria is the highest on the Balkans as a reason for the company's interest here.
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May. 2008 May 24 - Bulgarian national day of culture May 24 is celebrated in Bulgaria as the Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture and of the Slavonic Alphabet.
The day is celebrated throughout the country with festivities.
Besides Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture, the day is dedicated to the invention of the Slavonic or Cyrillic alphabet by the brothers SS Cyril and Methodius. The two brothers, still considered by many Bulgarians as having been Bulgarian, are credited with the invention of an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet, the Glagolitic alphabet. The alphabet has also been credited to Saint Clement of Ohrid, who was a disciple of Saints Cyril and Methodius. More recent studies have suggested that the Cyrillic alphabet was more likely developed at the Preslav Literary School in northeastern Bulgaria.
As part of the celebrations, a ceremony was held in front of the National Library in Sofia, the location of a statue of SS Cyril and Methodius in the presence of over 1300 school children from around the country, 8 youth brass orchestra's and 8 marching bands.
In his speech at the celebrations, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov said the government had an obligation in education and more specifically in the education of literary Bulgarian. This obligation should be reflected in the investment government made in education, Parvanov said.
Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov remarked in his speech that, if all Bulgarian institutions would work together in the same way they collectively celebrate May 24, the country would be reborn.
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May. 2008 Q1 2008 construction permits number down Bulgarian authorities have issued 3505 construction permits in the first quarter of 2008, a decrease of nearly 25 per cent over the previous three months, data from the National Statistical Institute data showed on May 21.
Residential developments continued to account for the largest share of the total, with 2267 permits granted for total area of area of 1.6 million sq m, compared with 2884 permits for 2.4 million sq m in the previous quarter. The number of permits for administrative buildings went down to 78 from 145.
Bourgas region received the largest number of permits for a third quarter running, although the figure nearly halved at 465, compared with 875 in October-January 2007. Varna saw the number of permits drop from 516 to 364, in Sofia the decrease was 406 to 342 and in Plovdiv - 433 to 320.
The four cities accounted for 42.5 per cent of all building permits, including 50.5 per cent of all residential ones for a total area of more than 892 00 sq me (56.3 per cent of total).
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May. 2008 Golf and Wine Tourism with Strong Potential for Bulgaria Over 300 million EUR could potentially be invested in golf courses in Bulgaria if the state provides private investors with plots suitable for golfing.
This statement was made by Krassimir Gergov, Chair of the National Tourist Board at the Fourth International Meeting of Bulgarian Media in Madrid, Spain.
If in 5 years golf courses were not built on the plots provided by the state, such plots would be automatically recalled, Gergov specified.
Gergov gave the example of Turkey where the yearly profit from a golf course is over 5 million EUR with the strong possibility for the same amounts to be reached in Bulgaria.
He further announced that this fall, from September 24 to 28, Bulgaria would host the International Golf Tournament Bulgaria Open. The tournament will take place at the Black Sea Ram golf course in Balchik and is expecting golfers from over 20 countries. In the fall the Black Sea Ram is already going to be an 18-hole course making the international tournament possible.
According to statement made by Poli Karastoyanova, Executive Director of the National Tourist Board, tourism in Bulgaria creates 15% of the Gross Domestic Product, providing 300 000 job opportunities and realizing over 3 billion EUR of yearly revenue.
Other presentations at the Media Meeting included those of Plamen Mollov, Chair of the National Viticulture and Wine Chamber and Nikoly Vassilev, Minster of State Administration.
Mollov presented the possibilities for development of wine tourism in Bulgaria. He gave the example of the Melnik wine, which was known as Winston Churchill's favorite one. Churchill used to order 500 bottles of it each year.
Vassilev presented in front of the media its Agency's transliteration project providing for a unified spelling of Bulgarian geographical and other names in Latin.