For the third month in a row, the revenue from overnight stays in Bulgaria exceeded the pre-pandemic level of 2019, according to a report from the National Statistical Institute (NSI). Revenues from overnight stays in July reached BGN 454.5 million, or 17.6% more compared to the same month of the previous year. The reported increase is both from foreign citizens - by 19.5%, and from Bulgarians - by 13.2%. Overnight revenue in June in Bulgaria exceeded pre-pandemic levels of 2019, as it did in May. Regarding the revenue from overnight stays, the annual inflation reported by NSI for July, which was 8.5%, while in July 2019 - 2.9%, for June 2023 was 8.7%, should also be taken into account. while in June 2019 - 2.8%. Annual inflation for May 2023 was 10.1%, and for May 2019 - 3.5%, according to a reference in the NSI. For July, the total bed occupancy was 55.8%, with the indicator increasing by 2.4 percentage points compared to a year earlier. Occupancy is highest in 4- and 5-star accommodations - 71.4%, followed by 3-star accommodations - 49.4%, and 1- and 2-star accommodations - 36%. In July 2023, 3,697 facilities with 10 or more beds were operating in the country. The number of overnight stays in accommodation facilities in July increased by 9% compared to the same month of 2022 and reached 1,441.3 thousand, with an increase recorded both among foreign citizens - by 13% and among Bulgarian citizens - with 4.8%. There were 675,000 Bulgarian citizens who stayed overnight and they spent an average of 3.2 nights. Foreign citizens numbered 766,300, with an average of 4.8 nights, and 72.3% of them stayed in 4- and 5-star hotels. The revenue from overnight stays in June 2023 was 229.2 million BGN, while in June 2019 - 205.4 million BGN. In May 2023, the revenue from overnight stays reached 87.7 million BGN, while in the same month of 2019, they were BGN 76.2 million.

The amount of the average social security income for the country for the month of July 2023 is BGN 1,416.53, the National Social Security Institute announced. The average monthly insurance income for the country for the period from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023 is BGN 1,389.13. The determined average monthly insurance income for the country for the specified period is used in calculating the amounts of the newly granted pensions in the month of August 2023, according to Art. 70, para. 3 of the Social Security Code.

The traditional leader in the sector ranking for clothing and textiles in Bulgaria, "E. Mirolio", recorded a 38% growth in sales, which reached BGN 335 million. The Italian businessman with a Bulgarian passport, Edoardo Miroglio, is the largest foreign investor in the sector. The Italian textile conglomerate Miroglio entered the Bulgarian market through the family parent company in 1999 with a greenfield investment in "Giorgetti" - Elin Pelin, followed by the acquisition of the wool-weaving enterprise "Slitex" - Sliven (later renamed to "Mirolio Lana "), as well as "Bouquet" - Nova Zagora. In 2001, "Giorgetti" merged with "Mirolio Lana" and was renamed "Mirolio Bulgaria", which remained the property of the Mirolio family. In 2002, Edoardo Miroglio started an independent activity - initially under the name "Raumer Bulgaria", and from 2007 - as "E. Miroglio". After the transformation of the family's companies, the large textile factory in Sliven remained his property, and in 2006-2007 the investor built a new factory in Yambol and became the owner of "Svilosa Yarn" in Svishtov. A series of expansions and modernizations followed. Today, Edoardo Mirolio owns seven textile factories in Sliven, three in Yambol and one in Svishtov. Part of the group is a dye shop in Italy, as well as two factories in the Serbian cities of Pirot and Dimitrovgrad. "E. Mirolio" owns its own companies in Georgia and France, as well as joint ventures in China, Italy and Bulgaria (in the garment factory in Kotel "Franco Fashion", in which the son of Edoardo Mirolio - Franco Mirolio) has a share. After a deal with the Greek owners, the company also acquired the fashion brand DiKa, under which clothes are sold in company stores in the country and abroad. Edoardo Mirolio also owns a hotel, a wine cellar and permanent plantations in the village of Elenovo in Novozagorsk, as well as several office buildings in Sofia.

In less than half a year, an international fintech giant will acquire the two largest insurance brokers in the country. The leading player in the market "SDI Group" JSC (SDI) is about to be acquired by the American fintech company Acrisure, which from 2021, which is the majority owner of the second largest broker - "I&G Insurance Brokers" Ltd ( I&G Brokers). At the end of 2022, the biggest insurance brokers in our country are SDI and I&G Brokers. They have realized premium income of BGN 148 million and BGN 143 million, respectively. The Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC) has received a notification according to which "Unilink Bulgaria" Ltd wants to acquire sole direct control over SDI. The buyer "Unilink Bulgaria" was established and operates on the territory of Bulgaria solely for the purpose of managing the shareholding of Unilink S.A. in the capital of I&G Brokers. SDI was founded in early 2004 by a team with many years of professional experience in the field of insurance. Since 2012, the company has been the No. 1 insurance broker according to data from the Financial Supervision Commission, serving over 650,000 clients annually. I&G Brokers is an international insurance and reinsurance broker, part of the Unilink S.A group, Poland. The company offers a wide range of insurance products in the scope of General Insurance, Life Insurance and Voluntary Health Insurance. I&G Brokers has 230 offices across the country. At the beginning of May 2023, it became clear that I&G Brokers will join its American counterpart Acrisure - a global fintech company that operates in 21 countries and generates annual revenues of more than 4 billion US dollars. In the last 8 years alone, Acrisure has grown more than 100 times, and since 2017, it has completed an average of more than 100 mergers and acquisitions per year. Among them are Safety Broker in Romania and Moldova and Insia in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The current deal is through its Polish division Unilink, which is the majority owner of I&G Brokers. The CPC is expected to issue a final decision after conducting a comprehensive assessment of the notified transaction. The deal is expected to be finalized by the end of September 2023.

The singer Beloslava and her husband, the artist Evgeni Ionov, sold their boutique hotel with the adjoining restaurant "Vila Arte" in the resort village of Lozenets, south of Burgas. The buyer of the two-story Mediterranean-style building is a Ukrainian businessman dealing in agricultural fertilizers. The information about the price of the transaction is that "Villa Arte" was sold for 3.5 million euros - about BGN 7 million. The buyer receives a two-story building with 10 rooms with their own bathroom, three of which - with terraces with a view of the sea , a 4-acre yard with an adjacent outdoor pool, its own orchard, a vineyard with various grape varieties, as well as a fully equipped restaurant. The hotel is about to be renovated and turned into a private family estate. fakti.bg

In accordance with the implementation of the commitments under the National Plan for the introduction of the euro in the Republic of Bulgaria, on September 11, 2023, the Depository of Government Securities at the Bulgarian National Bank (DDCC) joined the Eurosystem securities settlement platform TARGET2-Securities (TARGET2-Securities, T2S). T2S is one of the TARGET services provided by the Eurosystem, enabling the harmonization of securities settlement in central bank money at a pan-European level. The participation of government securities in T2S will contribute to better accessibility of Bulgarian government securities denominated in euro for EU investors and is an important step towards the adoption of the euro in Bulgaria. Together with DDCC, the other Bulgarian depository - "Central Depository" JSC joined T2S.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of "Terem - Holding" EAD, held on September 12, 2023, Dimitar Stoychev was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Kalin Dimitrov was elected as the Executive Director of the joint-stock company. The Minister of Defence, in his capacity as a body exercising the rights of the state as the sole owner of the capital of "Terem - Holding" EAD, Sofia, on the basis of the Commercial Law, the Law on Public Enterprises and the Regulations for its Implementation and the Statute of the Public Enterprise , decided to supplement the composition of the Board of Directors of "Terem - Holding" EAD from five to seven people and subsequently elected two new members.

Bulgaria dropped one place in the ranking for the largest exporters of soft wheat from the European Union since the beginning of the new agricultural season (July 1). Our country is already in 4th place with imports of 877 thousand tons, according to data from the European Commission. Romania remains first with 1.35 million tons, followed by Poland with 1.03 million tons, France with 939 thousand tons, and right behind us, although by a large margin, is Germany with 467 thousand tons. In total, since the beginning of the season, the EU has exported 5.03 million tons of soft wheat - 32% less compared to the same period last season. A decrease was also registered in the export of barley from the EU to third countries - by 27% compared to the first 2 months of last season to 1.45 million tons. As for grain imports into the EU, for soft wheat it jumped by 66% compared to the first 2 months of last season to 1.16 million tons, and for barley - by 42% to 504 thousand tons. The main supplier is Ukraine with about half of the imported quantities, according to the data of the European Commission. However, the import of corn into the EU since the beginning of the season has decreased by as much as 41% to 2.69 million tons. The largest importer remains Spain with 942 thousand tons, followed by the Netherlands with 405 thousand tons and Italy with 339 thousand tons.

Guyana's economy will grow by 38% this year, giving the country the title of fastest growing economy in the world for this year. The reason is the oil wealth that has transformed the South American country, according to the International Monetary Fund. The vast offshore oil fields first discovered by Exxon Mobil Corp. in 2015, have allowed the economy to quadruple in size over the past five years, and rapid growth is expected to continue for some time to come. "Prospects for medium-term growth are better than ever," the IMF said in a report. "Oil production will continue to accelerate rapidly, with three new approved fields coming on stream between 2024-2027. Another (sixth) field is expected to come on stream in the first half of 2028," it said. IMF, quoted by Bloomberg. Oil reserves, relative to Guyana's population of 800,000, are so large that some forecasts suggest the country will overtake even Kuwait to become the world's largest per capita producer of crude oil. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America. It passed laws to create a sovereign wealth fund and increased spending on education, health and infrastructure, according to the government. According to IMF data, Guyana's GDP for 2023 is $20,500 per capita. For comparison, in the country's neighbors - Venezuela and Sirunam, GDP per capita is 3,600 dollars and 5,500 dollars, respectively.

The Asia-Pacific region became the most attacked region in 2022: it accounted for 31 percent of the global number of attacks. Meanwhile, in the second quarter of 2023, the average number of attacks per week in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 22 percent compared to last year. This is clear from a study by Positive Technologies on the current cyber threats for Asian countries in 2023. The analysis covers China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and other neighboring countries. The targets of attackers in Asia from the beginning of 2022 to the middle of this year were most often government agencies (22% of all attacks), industrial companies (9%), IT companies (8%) and financial organizations (7%) ), 6% cyberattacks against educational institutions. Cyber espionage and data leakage remain among the most pressing threats to Asian countries this year, with 49 percent of successful attacks on organizations compromising confidential information such as user data and trade secrets. Thus, in 2023, the hacker group BlackCat (also known as ALPHV) stole 2 terabytes of data from the servers of the Indian company Solar Industries Limited (specialized chemical production). Among the stolen data are technical data on manufactured weapons and explosives, blueprints, information on weapons supplies and more. From Positive Technologies, they link hackers' interest in Asia to the high level of digitization in the region as a whole and the concentration there of leading global IT companies, whose data is valuable to attackers. The study also provides data from IBM, CheckPoint and other international companies operating in the Asian market.