Financial news

The revenues from VAT collected by the National Revenue Agency (NRA), have dropped by 57%, shows the data for the first trimester of 2010. For the period January-March 2010, the NRA collected 459 million levs from VAT compared to the over 1 billion levs in the same period of 2009. The VAT revenues collected are by 46% less than the planned by the NRA. The data was presented at a sitting of the NRA Consultative Council. The revenues collected by the NRA in the first three months of 2010 have dropped by 843 million levs compared to 2009. Among the main reasons for the decreased VAT revenues is the facilitated VAT repayment to business. Now, the VAT is paid back more quickly as the term for its return was reduced from 3 to 2 months.

The European Commission (EC) is launching a procedure against Bulgaria over its excessive deficit, Amadeu Altafaj, spokesman for EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, said. According to data by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, said Bulgaria run up a budget deficit of 3.9% of GDP for 2009, exceeding the 3% cap for eurozone entry. The Commission initiated the same procedure against Cyprus. Altafaj told the Commission is aware of Bulgaria’s commitments to rein in the deficit within the 3% limit this year. The procedure could be suspended in the coming months if the country produces convincing evidence it will constrain the deficit within the limit in 2010. The Eurostat estimate of Bulgaria’s deficit is 2 percentage points higher than the government’s revised figures from early April.

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Companies

“Greeks withdraw their savings from the local banks and deposit them in banks in Bulgaria. At the same time, over 2,000 Greek companies have been registered in Bulgaria due to the better tax system and conditions for business development,” stated Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourisn, Traycho Traykov during a lecture in the American University in Blagoevgrad.  “The reason for the Greek invasion in the banks in Bulgaria is the stable economic situation in this country and the crisis which has seriously overcome Greece as well as the higher deposit interest in Bulgaria. The relations between Bulgaria and Greece develop in an excellent way,” Minister Traykov underlined.

French company Saint-Gobain Weber started Wednesday the construction of its second factory in Bulgaria. The ground-breaking ceremony for the factory located near Izvorsko village, Aksakovo Municipality, close to Varna, was attended by Bulgaria’s Regional Development Minister Rosen Plevneliev. The second factory to be built by Saint-Gobain Weber in Bulgaria will also be producing dry construction mixes. Saint-Gobain Weber entered the Bulgarian market in 2001. In 2004, it opened its first storage facility, and in 2005 it acquired the Bulgarian maker of dry construction mixes Metakol stationed in the city of Ruse.

The Union of Publishers in Bulgaria has sent a letter to the Minister of Finance Simeon Dyankov demanding to know in which Bulgarian banks the available capital of state companies, among which are Sofia Airport, Bulgarian Posts, Bulgargaz, Kozloduy NPP, NEK, etc., has been deposited and what the exact amount of each deposit is. The Union also demanded to know what the total amount of deposits was by the end of 2009 and requested a clarification of the rules and criterions for risk management determining the choice of a bank. The request was backed by the Trud, the 24 Chasa, the Standart, the Sega, the Dnevnik, the Zemya, the Duma, the Novinar dailies, the Tema and Capital weeklies and other print media.

After a two-year delay and vigorous reactions, Bulgaria’s carbon dioxide plan has finally got the go-ahead of the European Commission (EC), enabling authorized companies to trade in their carbon quotas. Deputy environment minister Evdokia Maneva said the plan’s notification was received late on Wednesday. Close to 150 Bulgarian companies included in the 2008-2012 plan could be able to trade quotas from next week, according to Vanya Grigorova, head of the Executive Agency of Bulgaria’s Environment Ministry, which administers the national online registry of quota transactions. Bulgaria obtained approval for all 42.3 million quotas requested. Grigorova explained companies will be able to trade quotas as soon as they pay an administrative fee, which depends on the volume of quotas.

The local public companies with Greek shareholders have not been sticking to their commitments, as laid down in their prospectuses, a survey of Pari Daily suggests. The print issue reads some of the suspects are Welcome Holdings, Vita Mi Holdings, Globe Farm, Oni Holdings, Mayfair Group, Iga Bulgaria, etc. Pari Daily points at ITA Bulgaria Energy Investments as one of the top deceivers on BSE-Sofia.

Europe

Many of Europe's biggest corporations are avoiding registering their lobbying activities in Brussels even as they admit to the scale of their operations in Washington where registration of lobbyists is required by law, according to a new study. As a result of the different registry frameworks between the two legislative capitals - in Brussels, the European Commission's lobby registry is a voluntary affair - European big business on the whole is able to make it appear that it is engaged in much more lobbying in Washington than in Brussels. This is the conclusion of a new study by lobbying watchdogs that analyses what the EU's 50 biggest corporations say they are spending on influencing policy. A total of 20 of these 50 EU-based firms are not signed up to the commission's lobby register.

America

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein attacked U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges against the bank in phone calls to clients. In its civil fraud lawsuit on Friday, the SEC alleged that Goldman failed to tell clients that complex mortgage-related securities they were buying had been created by billionaire hedge fund investor John Paulson, who stood to benefit if the securities lost value. Paulson has not been charged. Blankfein is trying to bolster confidence of business partners following the lawsuit, according to the newspaper. It said that in conversations with private equity executives and others, Blankfein left clients with an impression he is eager to fight the case in court.

Asia

China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co (BAIC) said it is building a plant to make vehicles using technology it acquired from GM's Saab unit late last year. The new plant will have annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles, said BAIC President Wang Dazong at an industry forum before the opening of the Beijing auto show, China's largest. BAIC, China's fifth-largest automaker, purchased the design rights to several older Saab models late last year for about $200 million, after a group it was part of failed to reach a deal to buy the loss-making Swedish carmaker from GM. After buying the rights, BAIC said it would immediately start integrating the technology into its own vehicles, with commercial production for Saab-based cars to begin as soon as 2011.

World Book and Copyright Day

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature for on this date in 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.
It was a natural choice for UNESCO’s General Conference, held in Paris in 1995, to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date. The big amount of precious and various book collections, stored in the National Library St.St. Cyril and Methodius (picture in the left) make it the most important and largest book depository on the territory of Bulgaria, as well as one of the most significant and richest libraries on the Balkan peninsula. The idea for its establishment was first given by the teacher Michail Bubotinov in 1878 and was warmly welcomed by the authorities at that time. By the end of 1878, it was already working, and in 1879, it became an official state establishment, bearing the name Bulgarian National Library. Currently, the library has a rich fund of over 7 000 000 items, including manuscripts, archive documents, periodical issues, graphical issues and albums, mapping materials, note editions, patents and standards, official issues, gramophone records, recording tapes, portraits and pictures, slides, microfilms, thesis works, CD-ROMs.

On that day:  Pobiti Kamani Natural Monument The Church St. Nikola-Old – Lom