Housing loans are growing by a record 15.8% per year, the BNB said. Such an increase in loans for the purchase of houses and apartments did not occur in the period before the pandemic. The huge growth is due to the fact that because of the pandemic more and more people want to move to a bigger and nicer home. At the same time, the demand for rural houses and holiday properties has increased. And low interest rates on deposits and loans further contribute to the boom in the real estate market. The total amount of loans for the purchase of housing for the year increased by BGN 1.82 billion and at the end of August reached BGN 13.3 billion, according to BNB data. There is also a very large growth in consumer loans - by 9.8% per year. This is the largest increase since the beginning of the pandemic. But before the arrival of Covid-19 in the country, larger increases were reported. 

The funds accumulated in the State Fund for Ensuring the Sustainability of the State Pension System, better known as the Silver Fund, reached BGN 3.510 billion at the end of August, which is BGN 39 million more than in July and BGN 218 million more than at the end of last year. This is clear from data from the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Of the BGN 3.510 billion in question, BGN 3.452 billion were deposited in a separate account with the BNB. The funds transferred in August 2021 to the guarantee fund from the Pension Fund in the State Social Insurance (SSSI) amount to BGN 38.29 million. For comparison, a month earlier the amount was BGN 8.15 million. A total of BGN 133.63 million was transferred for the second quarter of the year. For comparison, for the whole 2020 the amount was BGN 188.68 million. 

The largest distributor of organic food and beverages in Bulgaria, which also has its own production - Smart Organic, plans to raise EUR 3 million of additional capital through the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE). The company will be presented at the "SME Growth Market" created at the end of 2018 and launched in 2019, called BEAM (Bulgarian Enterprise Accelerator Market). The funds are planned to be used for the purchase of a German competitor and for the construction of a new production plant. Both projects will be financed with a bank loan, Yani Dragov, founder and owner of Smart Organic, told Capital. The initial public offering is scheduled for the end of October 2021, and the leading manager of the issue is the investment intermediary Karoll. The deal with the German competitor is at an advanced stage and is scheduled to be completed in November. So far, the Bulgarian company has not provided more information due to confidentiality clauses. The other planned investment, for which financing is sought through the stock exchange, is a production factory located on an area of 4000 sq.m. "We are currently choosing a suitable terrain, and the plans are for construction to start in the spring of 2022. About BGN 6 million are planned for the first stage of construction. The investment will allow Smart Organic to double its production volume," Yani Dragov said.

Portugal-based renewable energy producer Greenvolt has expanded into the markets of Bulgaria, Romania and Italy through its unit V-Ridium, a Polish renewables developer. "In Bulgaria, operations begun this week, with the Sofia office fully operational and accounting with 200 MW of wind power projects under development," Greenvolt said in a statement published earlier this week. In line with its development strategy, the company also started its operations in Romania this week. Greenvolt has high potential development plans for Romania, with a pipeline of 170 MW in solar and wind energy projects. Lisbon-headquartered Greenvolt - Energias Renovaveis (Greenvolt), owned by Portuguese industrial group ALTRI, is mainly active in the sector of electricity production from biomass forestry. With an accumulated experience in this segment of about 20 years, Greenvolt has skills in the design, engineering, operation and maintenance of biomass power stations, according to information published on the company's website. Greenvolt's activity is currently the result of the continuous improvement strategy pursued by ALTRI, of integration between the forestry chain that produces biomass and the production of energy from this renewable resource. Based on technical skills, Greenvolt developed a differentiated growth strategy based on three areas: biomass, solar and photovoltaic energy and decentralised energy generation.

The Irish multinational IT company Accenture plans to hire at least 60 software specialists in Ruse and the region by the end of 2023. It has no office in the city and therefore they will work remotely. The number can jump to 100, it is clear from information on the website of the municipality. With this move, the software player will be present at three locations in Bulgaria. According to the information, positions will be opened for Junior Developers, Java Developers, Senior Java Developers, Front-End Engineers, DevOps, Testers and others. The company's goal is to help the development of the local community, so in the long run it is expected to provide financial support to students in technological specialties at the University of Ruse "Angel Kanchev". Accenture entered Bulgaria in 2015 when it acquired Javelin Group. To date, there are offices in Sofia and Plovdiv, which employ over 230 people. Globally, the company is present in over 120 countries.

The state construction company Montagi, which received in-house contracts worth more than half a billion levs from its owner, the State Consolidation Company (SCC), continues to pay for the execution to external companies. This is clear from the report, published with nearly two months delay, by the middle of the year. The data show that in the second quarter alone the company paid BGN 10 million for external services, although the contracts were certainly concluded before that. For the first half of the year, revenues increased more than three times on an annual basis, after the company started receiving payments under contracts awarded by SCC last year. The largest of them are for the repair of dams, but the total orders received are for more than BGN 750 million. As it became clear some time ago from the data presented by the former acting Minister of Economy Kiril Petkov, Montagi itself has reassigned the execution of the orders to private companies, as Kovel-Pro, Planex-GES and Abak DS turned out to be the most favored. Although the state-owned company is not legally entitled to transfer in-house procurement activities, this was to be expected, given that it has only 200 employees.

Bulgaria's Prime Property BG REIT said that it is seeking the approval of its shareholders to launch a share repurchase programme targeting up to 3% of its own equity capital. The company will pay up to BGN 0.70 per share but no less than BGN 0.50 per share in the buyback programme, the REIT said in an invitation for a shareholders meeting published earlier this week. The programme will run for a period of up to one year. Prime Property BG REIT shareholders will vote on the proposal at a meeting scheduled for October 28. According to commercial register data, the capital of Sofia-based Prime Property BG REIT amounts to some BGN 35.7 million divided into 35,706,593 shares with a nominal value of GN 1 each.

The software used by the German carmaker Volkswagen Group to block emissions based on outside temperature and altitude is illegal and cannot be justified by its role in protecting the engine, an adviser to the Supreme Court of the European Union told Reuters. The finding, if confirmed by the European Court of Justice, will be another blow to Volkswagen in a series of lawsuits related to the use of unregulated software. The lawsuit, filed by consumers in Austria, involved software controlling the exhaust gas recirculation valve from the engine outlet. This reduces nitric oxide emissions, which can cause respiratory problems in humans. The software closes the valve at outside temperatures above the range of 15-33 ° C and at an altitude of over 1000 meters, thus increasing the emissions of nitric oxide. When the valve is open, the amount of emissions decreases.

Toast is a little-known technology company outside the United States. But just a day ago, it made one of the largest initial public offerings (IPOs) on the US market in 2021. The company debuted on the stock exchange on Wednesday, with a market capitalization of USD 31 billion, and after the last appreciation of the shares, its valuation approached USD 33 billion. This marks a more than successful period for Toast, as only 10 months ago - in November 2020, its capitalization was USD 25 billion less. The company provides cloud-based catering software. Then its sales collapsed by 80%, and a month later the management decided to lay off 50% of its employees. After the initial shock, however, Toast managed to accumulate positives, focusing on companies offering deliveries of ready meals. This helped it add a record number of new customers in 2020 and increase its profits by 24%. The Boston-based start-up was founded in 2013, and only a year and a half ago - in February 2020, it was valued at USD 4.9 billion after a round of investments.

The National Bureau of Statistics of China said that China had invested 2.4 trillion yuan in research and development last year, an increase of 10.2% from 2019. According to the jointly published by the Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance "Statistical Bulletin for the financing of research and development activities in 2020", the intensity of financial flow in this area has reached 2.4%, which is 0.16% more than in 2019 and is a record for the last 11 years. Zhang Qilong, a statistician with the National Bureau of Statistics, said that from an international point of view, funding for research and development in China is developing steadily. The funds invested by China in this area are about 54% of those of the United States and is 2.1 times more than Japan. From 2016 to 2019, the net increase in spending on average per year exceeded 200 billion yuan and accounted for about 60% of the total of the G7.