Financial news

Bulgaria's current account showed a surplus of EUR 1.36 billion in the January-September period, compared to a surplus of EUR 1.03 billion a year earlier, the central bank said on Monday. The current account surplus was equivalent to 3.2% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) projected for 2015, compared to a surplus of 2.4% of the GDP in the year-ago period. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country rose to EUR 1.1 billion in the nine months through September from EUR 872 million in the year-ago period. Bulgaria's trade balance showed a deficit of EUR 1.19 billion for the period under review, equivalent to 2.8% of the projected GDP. A year earlier the country had a trade shortfall of EUR 2.02 billion for the same period, equal to 4.7% of the projected GDP. Nine-month exports increased by 7.5% to EUR 16.6 billion, while imports went up by 1.9% to EUR 17.8 billion.

Bulgaria’s unemployment rate stood at 9.5% in September, 0.3 percentage points higher than a month earlier and 1.2 percentage points lower than in September 2014, the country's Employment Agency said. A total of 312,915 unemployed were registered with the agency’s offices at the end of last month, 10,140 more than in September, the agency said in a press release. The significant increase in unemployment in October is largely due to the end of the summer tourist season, the agency noted. The number of people who found a job in October totalled 19,412, down from 19,999 in September. The number of registered vacancies in October was 11,853. Bulgaria has a population of around 7.3 million.

	Mineral Fuels, Tailoring Products, Canning, Perfumery and Cosmetics, Furniture, Meat Products, Wine, Wood-processing Industry

Companies

Plovdiv-based company for aluminum details under the name of Laki 131 prepares installation of new machinery which will extend its production list and will increase its capacity by about 10%. To that end additional building to the existing factory will be built. Completion of the project will allow the company to produce bigger details for its customers. Investment is assessed to EUR 300 thousand. The company envisages construction of a new building where automated machinery for moulding of aluminum castings with a capacity for casting of 54.5 tons / year will be installed. The building will have an area of 167 square meters and is located next to the existing facility of the company. Installation of a new metal processing machine where tool equipment will be made is also being prepared. The investment will be insured by equity funds. Laki 131 is founded 12 years ago with main activity in casting of aluminum parts under high pressure. The capacity of the factory is about 1200 tons of castings annually. Furthermore, melting and casting is performed at the factory and subsequent machining of the products. The company's revenues come primarily from casting of details with matrices of customers. The production is mainly for export, and about 90% is sold in Germany, Austria and Italy, and only 10% are destined for the Bulgarian market.

Eskona Consult OOD has acquired 25.66 percent or 1.143 million shares of the capital of the Fund for Energetics and Energy savings - FEEI REIT and its share reached 25.73%, or 1,146,105 shares. Seller is International Asset Bank. Eskona Consult OOD with headquarters in Sofia, 20 Kosta Lulchev Str., the same address as Enemona AD, which is the largest shareholder in the REIT. Major shareholders as of 30 September 2015 are Enemona with a share of 37.28%, or about 1.66 million shares (including shares pledged as collateral for repo transactions), International Asset Bank with 25.66% and Badeshte - Universal pension fund with 6.94% (approximately 309,000 shares). Arrears to the FEEI REIT reached a share of 66.36%, of which above 180 days delay are 63.66%, and less than 180 days – the other 2.7%, the company announced in the interim Report as to September 30, 2015.

All HTC phones in Bulgaria in recent months were sent to the Romanian capital Bucharest for repair. HTC has its own service there, which serves Bulgarian consumers. However, this is about to change: starting December all HTC branded appliances will be repaired in Sofia after it signed a contract with a new service company. HTC agreed a long-term partnership with Bulgram - Bulgarian market leader and part of the Croatian chain service Agram. The company maintains the service of a number of leading manufacturers of phones and Bulgarian mobile operators. "We are confident that the availability of service in Bulgaria will significantly improve and accelerate logistics and servicing of HTC phones in the country," said Nikolai Nankov, regional manager of the manufacturer of phones for Bulgaria and Macedonia.

The biomass plant in Etropole owned by the company Green Forest Project that is associated with Bella Bulgaria may start operation. The facility was built in 2012, but worked only a few months, as it turned out, that it seriously pollutes the city. Now the owners of the plant decided to make a second attempt to launch it. For this purpose a new investment plan, which provides for reorganization and reconstruction of technological equipment, was developed. The reconstruction provides for generation of electricity from agricultural products. The new investment plan of Green Forest Project dates back from the summer of this year. The raw material to be used is plant biomass of different kinds of agricultural residues and wastes from the production of beer. It is a raw material of 90 thousand tons a year, after which processing 75 thousand tons of liquid fertilizer will remain. The latter can be used to fertilize directly or stored in built for this purpose silos. Modification of the plant envisages the use of 70% of i5 MW facility’s capacity. Construction of the plant will be carried out by the Italian company Solarfotonika.

Workshop for production of essential oil of coriander will be built in the village of Kalchevo, Yambol. Investor in the project is ET Elia - Elizabeth Todorova, which has a venture for peeled sunflower nearby. The company works in the field of agriculture and is part of Geogrup, which has businesses in various sectors. The project includes construction of warehouse and production building for storage and processing of coriander. The site will have a site for unloading silos and service facilities. In the manufacturing sector in an area of nearly 1,000 sq.m. will be located a cleaning, assembling and distillery installations. It will have a capacity to process 48 tons of raw materials per day. Up to 20% (just under 10 tons) of seeds will be offered in the form of cleaned and packed coriander and the rest will be processed to essential oil (about 0.36 tons). Waste production is expected to be transported to an existing biogas plant in Yambol, and some of it can be used as animal feed.

SoftServe presented its new corporate brand and logo that highlight the evolution of the company, its vision and dedication, and zeal to contribute to the success of customers. The demand for SoftServe lead to company growth of 500% over the past six years, and to significantly strengthen its global footprint. This includes the opening of new offices in Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom in the last two years. So the next logical step is to establish both the intrinsic values ​​of SoftServe, and focus on the experience with a new corporate branding. SoftServe is launched in 1993 with a simple but compelling vision: to build a software company that serves our customers so that the driving force behind their success. To achieve this, we build close relationships with our customers, so we really understand their business objectives,“ said Chris Baker, CEO of SoftServe.

IndustryMatchMaking 2016 - IMM2016, Business and technology matching event

Europe

Finland's parliament will debate next year whether to quit the euro, a senior parliamentary official said on Monday, in a move unlikely to end membership of the single currency but which highlights Finns' dissatisfaction with their country's economic performance. The decision follows a citizens' petition which has raised the necessary 50,000 signatures under Finnish rules to force such a debate, probably the first such initiative in any country of the 19-member euro zone. "There will be signature checks early next year and a parliamentary debate will be held in the following months," said Maija-Leena Paavola, who helps guide legislation through parliament. The petition - which will continue to gather signatures until mid-January - demands a referendum on euro membership, but this would only go ahead if parliament backed the idea. Despite the initiative, a Eurobarometer poll this month showed 64 percent of Finns backed the common currency, though that is down from 69 percent a year ago. But the Nordic country has suffered three years of economic contraction and is currently performing worse than any other country in the euro zone.

America

Marriott International Inc. is buying Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. for $12.2 billion to create the world’s largest hotel company, beating other suitors, which reportedly included Hyatt Hotels Corp. Marriott is paying $2 a share in cash and 0.92 of its own stock for Stamford, Connecticut-based Starwood, the companies said in a statement on Monday. The new group will operate or franchise more than 5,500 hotels with 1.1 million rooms worldwide. “This is an opportunity to create value by combining the distribution and strengths of Marriott and Starwood, enhancing our competitiveness in a quickly evolving marketplace,” said Arne Sorenson, Marriott’s president and chief executive officer. “Greater scale should offer a wider choice of brands to consumers, improve economics to owners and franchisees, increase unit growth and enhance long-term value to shareholders.” The deal is the largest takeover of a hotel company since Blackstone Group LP bought Hilton for $26 billion in 2007. Starwood has been exploring options including a sale since the February departure of longtime head Frits van Paasschen amid criticism he failed to increase the number of properties carrying Starwood’s brands quickly enough.

Asia

China's Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd plans to invest 300 billion yuan ($47 billion) over the next five years in a bid to become the world's third-biggest chipmaker, the chairman of the state-backed technology conglomerate said. Chairman Zhao Weiguo also told Reuters in an interview in Beijing that the company controlled by Tsinghua University, which counts President Xi Jinping among its alumni, was in talks with a U.S.-based company involved in the chip industry. A deal could be finalized as early as the end of this month, he said. He declined to give more details but said buying a majority stake was unlikely as it was too "sensitive" for the U.S. government. "If you can't be the top-three giant, it will be very hard to develop your business in the chip industry," Zhao said, citing reports that China imported more chips than crude oil every year. "The next five years is key... There is an enormous market out there." Currently, Qualcomm Inc holds the No.3 position in the global chip rankings, behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and market leader Intel Corp, which has a market capitalization of $151.5 billion.

Sarafska House /Arie’s Home/

The Arie family is one of the most popular Jewish families in Bulgaria. Especially the family who lived in Samokov has their incredible history. They are sefardic Jews coming from Wien and they settled in Samokov in 1793. The story of Arie family is colorfully and widely connected to the life in Samokov during the 19th c. During that time the city was separated into several neighborhoods – Bulgarian, Turkish, Jewish and Gypsies’s, so it is considered that the city had a gravitation effect over settlers. The wealthy Jewish family Arie built a few houses in the city of Samokov and also the city Synagogue. The so-called Big Sarafska House that had a big hall is unfortunately not preserved. The house had a balcony with beautiful woodcarvings where the orchestra sat while some picturesque landscapes of exotic beaches with palm trees and drawings of distant cities were adorning the house walls. Out of the other four houses built by the Arie family during the 19th century’s 50s and 60s only one is still preserved and now it is called the Sarafska House. It is believed that like this one the other houses also had big yards with small waterfalls, flower-beds and glazed verandahs used also as winter- gardens. The Sarafska House is now opened to visitors as a museum. Just in front of it is the Synagogue.

On that day:  Petko R. Slaveikov November 17, 1993 - God is Bulgarian