Bulgaria has been seeking diversification of energy sources and routes for supply. This was stated at a meeting in Sofia between Minister of Energy Temenuzhka Petkova and EU ambassadors. The minister pointed out work on the gas interconnector with Greece, which will be operational by 2020. The power lines between Bulgaria and Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, and Bulgaria and Serbia, allow for at least 15% interconnection. Minister Petkova added that Bulgaria relied on coal-fired power stations to work until 2030-2050. These plants can be used with local raw energy sources, sufficient for another 60 years. The power plants provide 60% of electricity during the winter and significant amounts of money have been invested in sulfur cleaning systems. Ambassadors expressed a keen interest in the Belene NPP project and the gas drilling projects in the Black Sea.

The number of residential building permits issued in Bulgaria in the fourth quarter of 2018 rose by 14% year-on-year to 1,477, NSI, said. Compared to the third quarter, the number of residential building permits issued in the October-December period fell by 11%. A total of 33 permits for construction of administrative buildings were issued in the fourth quarter, up 10% compared to the same period of last year. Compared to the previous quarter, construction permits for administrative buildings decreased 10.8%. Regarding other types of buildings, a total of 1,319 permits were issued in the quarter under review, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year and 9.3% quarter-on-quarter.

The UK's Manchester Airports Group (MAG) reaffirmed its plans to submit an offer in the Bulgarian government's tender for awarding a 35-year concession contract to run Sofia Airport. "We were ready to file out offer in Sofia today, but we support the new timeframe and we will work until the new deadline," Andrew Harrison, MAG's airport services CEO, said in a statement. Bulgaria's transport ministry said last week that it has extended, for the fourth time, the deadline for submitting offers, to April 3. The decision is based on requests by candidates and has been coordinated with the advisors on the procedure - the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). MAG has not asked for an extension of the deadline. The estimated value of the concession contract is EUR 3.9 billion, the transport ministry said in August when the tender was launched. Manchester Airports Group operates three airports in Great Britain - Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands. The combined annual passenger traffic of the three airports totals nearly 60 million.

The biggest producer of nitrogen, phosphorus and combined fertilizers in Bulgaria Agropolychim AD announced that it has launched the year with BGN 100 million investments in the country. The company plans to expand the capacity of the terminal for import of ammonia and to double it to 23,000 tons. Ammonia will be exported to Serbia and Romania. The production capacity of nitrogen fertilizers will increase by more than 50% to 75,000 tons per year. Grain Terminal Varna West AD, which is being built on the site of Agropolychim and has a capacity of 100,000 tons, is also among the company's leading investment projects as it will allow farmers and grain traders to optimally use transport in both directions - once for delivery of grain to the terminal and a second time for the purchase of fertilizers. The terminal will be operational by the end of 2019 and will provide 40 new jobs. Over 1.5 million tons of grain will pass through the terminal, while at the same time the users will avoid heavy traffic in Varna and will significantly increase the loading speed of the ships.

ICGB, the company developing the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria project, said that following pre-selection it has invited five candidates to submit an offer for a EUR 145 million contract for design, procurement and construction of the gas link. The selected candidates are DZZD IGB - 2018, JV Max Streicher - Terna/ICGB, Consortium Spiecapag Trace IGB 2018, J&P AVAX S.A. and Joint Venture CPP - Aktor. Six companies and tie-ups were disqualified in the pre-selection phase. The IGB pipeline will connect the Greek gas transmission system in the area of Komotini to the Bulgarian gas transmission system in the area of Stara Zagora. The planned length of the pipeline is 182 km and the projected capacity will be up to 3 billion cu m per year in the direction from Greece to Bulgaria. Depending on interest from the market and the capacities of the neighbouring gas transmission systems, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased up to 5 billion cu m per year, thus allowing for physical reverse flow from Bulgaria to Greece with the additional installation of a compressor station. The gas link is estimated to cost EUR 220 million. The project company has secured a sovereign guarantee of EUR 110 million under the annual state budget act, which could ensure loan financing under preferable conditions. The project is being implemented by the joint venture company ICGB, in which state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and Greece-registered IGI Poseidon hold equal shares. Greek public gas corporation DEPA and Italian energy group Edison own 50% each of IGI Poseidon.

Bulgarian copper mining company Asarel-Medet is seeking the approval of its shareholders to launch a share repurchase programme, worth up to EUR 100.5 million, targeting up to 14.7% of its own capital. Asarel-Medet's shareholders will vote on the proposal at a meeting scheduled for February 15, an invitation for the meeting filed with the Bulgarian commercial register showed. The proposal envisages buying back up to 591,240 own shares in the price range EUR 170-200 apiece. Asarel Medet was set up in 1991 and is based in Panagyurishte, in southern Bulgaria. In June 1999, the company was acquired by Asarel-Invest – a joint stock company, majority owned by VA Copper Invest - a subsidiary of Austria's VA Intertrading. According to the latest available commercial register data, Malta-based VA Copper Invest owned a 67.91% stake in Asarel-Medet at the end of 2017.

The Special Court decided to stop reading the indictment in the CCB case. This step came after the adopted changes to the Criminal-Procedure Code. Thus the process will continue under the new procedure and the prosecution will only be presented with a shortened version. For almost a year, the Prosecutor's Office has managed to present only half of the indictment, which is thousands of pages, in the courtroom. Earlier, the defense explained that the change in law cannot act retroactively, but only for future cases.

Bulgarian lavender oil and cosmetics producer Lavena said that the registry agency has entered the company's recent capital increase into the commercial register. Following the increase, Lavena's capital amounts to BGN 9.9 million. Last month, Lavena said that it has raised BGN 5.6 million via the issuance of 1,599,904 new shares with a nominal value of BGN 1 each. In its prospectus, Lavena said that it will invest BGN 3 million of the total into a project for expanding the company's production and storage facilities. Lavena intends to finance the remaining part of the BGN 7 million levs through a bank loan. The remaining BGN 2.6 million will be used to pay back debt owed to Lavena's majority owner - Baltimore. Baltimore holds a 74.96% stake in Lavena. In August last year, Lavena increased its capital to BGN 8.32 million from BGN 319,981 via a bonus share issue. Established in 1962, Lavena owns lavender plantations and exports its products to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the U.S. Bulgaria is among the world's biggest producers of lavender oil.

EU co-legislators agreed on new rules to facilitate establishing a business electronically and promote online operations throughout a company’s lifecycle. The new rules aim to save businesses time and money, while increasing safeguards against fraud and abusive behaviour through online identity checks. They provide: improved online procedures, from setting up companies to registering their branches and filing documents; user-friendly information is provided on registration portals, free of charge and in a language broadly understood by a majority of cross-border users; “once-only principle”, meaning a company needs to submit information only once during its lifecycle; transparent rules on fees, applied in a non-discriminatory manner, without exceeding the costs of providing such services. Negotiators agreed that while all steps to set up a business can be completed online, it is also possible to request face-to-face interaction on a case-by-case basis. 

Face to face with emboldened Democrats, President Donald Trump called on Washington to cast aside “revenge, resistance and retribution” and end “ridiculous partisan investigations” in a State of the Union address delivered at a vulnerable moment for his presidency. Trump appealed for bipartisanship but refused to yield on the hard-line immigration policies that have infuriated Democrats and forced the recent government shutdown. He renewed his call for a border wall and cast illegal immigration as a threat to Americans’ safety and economic security. Trump accepted no blame for his role in cultivating the rancorous atmosphere in the nation’s capital, and he didn’t outline a clear path for collaborating with Democrats who are eager to block his agenda. Their opposition was on vivid display as Democratic congresswomen in the audience formed a sea of white in a nod to early 20th-century suffragettes. Trump is staring down a two-year stretch that will determine whether he is re-elected or leaves office in defeat.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, is expected to go up in January, said Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communications in a research report. The CPI is expected to rise 2 percent year-on-year in January, slightly up from 1.9 percent registered in December last year driven mainly by rising food prices, according to Lian. Prices of vegetables and aquatic products went up in January as people were stocking food for the Spring Festival holiday starting Feb. 4. Lian predicted the CPI in February would ease to less than 2 percent due to a carry-over effect. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will release the official January CPI data on Feb. 15. NBS data showed China's CPI for 2018 rose 2.1 percent year on year, up from 1.6 percent for 2017. It exceeded 2 percent for the first time in the past four years, but was well below the government's target to keep the CPI increase at around 3 percent in 2018.