The European Commission has lowered its forecast for Bulgaria's economic expansion in 2019 to 3.6%, from 3.7% projected in November 2018. Bulgaria's expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2019 is the fifth highest among EU member states, data from the Commission's Winter 2019 Economic Forecast report showed. In addition, the EU institution affirmed its projection for a 3.6% increase in Bulgaria's GDP in 2020. Domestic demand, which was the main engine of growth in 2018, is expected to remain so in 2019 and 2020, as labour market tightening and additional public sector wage increases are expected to provide continued support for private consumption in 2019. The low interest rates and EU funding are expected to support the already strong private and public investment. The major downside risk to the outlook stems from the possibility of weaker demand in major export markets. Bulgaria's economic growth slowed down to 3.2% in 2018 largely due to weaker exports due to softer external demand from large trading partners in the EU and Turkey. Bulgaria's inflation accelerated to 2.6% in 2018 from 1.2% in 2017 on the back of higher energy prices and a poor harvest, which led to an increase in unprocessed food prices. "Despite the support of strong demand and high wage growth, inflation is expected to fall to 2.0% in 2019, mainly as a result of base effects, and then ease further to 1.8% in 2020," the Commission said.

The quality of life in Sofia is almost twice as high than it is in Plovdiv and Varna, National Statistical Institute data show. The biggest average annual per capital income is also in Sofia – over EUR 15,000. Second comes Stara Zagora with EUR 8,950, ahead of a number of towns and cities in Bulgaria which are bigger. Third in per capita income comes Sofia Region with EUR 7,925, then Varna with EUR 7,056, Gabrovo with EUR 6,290 and Burgas with EUR 6,237. Despite the economic growth of recent years, Bulgaria is still bottom of the list in the EU in per capita GDP with EUR 7,300 – four and a half times less than the average for the EU - EUR 30,000.

Bulgarian company SVS has signed a EUR 22.8 million deal with Synergon Hotels, a unit of diversified group Synergon Holding, for the acquisition of Grand Hotel Plovdiv, commercial register data shows. SVS paid EUR 4.3 million upon signing the sale contract, and will pay the remaining EUR 18.5 million subsequently, using a loan from local First Investment Bank. Grand Hotel Plovdiv company in turn is wholly-owned by Synergon Hotels. The deal follows the signing of a preliminary contract in June 2018. Grand Hotel Plovdiv company was established in October 2018. The company has a registered capital of BGN 45.7 million. Last year, Synergon Hotels sold 100% of its subsidiary - hotel owner Europa Resort, to Bulgarian Tourist Company Global Tours for an undisclosed price. Synergon Holding was set up in 1996 as a privatisation fund under Bulgaria's voucher privatisation programme. The fund was transformed into a holding structure the following year. It has more than 25 subsidiaries and affiliated companies operating in various sectors of the Bulgarian economy.

International IT solutions provider Softline has entered the Bulgarian market, after successfully launching operations in six Eastern European markets in 2018. Softline Bulgaria will pay special attention to the Server Message Block (SMB) market niche, where it sees big potential in servicing medium-sized companies. Softline can help Bulgarian independent software vendors (ISV) offer their products in Russia. Softline Group is a strategic partner of tech giant Microsoft and focuses on cloud solutions ans security, IT strategy development, IT outsourcing and deployment services, and other. In 2018, Softline Group booked USD 1.27 billion in revenue, up from USD 1.19 billion the year before. The company has achieved an average annual sales growth of 30% in the past 10 years. With offices in 95 cities worldwide, Softline services over 60,000 SMB clients.

Food processing company Bella Bulgaria intends to invest BGN 15 million in capacity expansion and the opening of an affiliate in Serbia this year. The company will invest in the integration of new automated production lines and quality control systems, as well as construction of new storage facilities. Bella's affiliate in Serbia will be its third outside Bulgaria, after it entered Greece in 2012 and Romania in 2007. The company will also be looking to develop a partner network in Bulgaria with local meat producers this year. Bella Bulgaria has nine factories with a daily output of 350 tonnes of food.

Billa Bulgaria, the local arm of supermarket chain Billa owned by Germany's REWE Group, has opened a new store in residential and business complex Garitage Park, located in Sofia. "This is a positive sign that throughout the new year Billa will keep growing and remain the leader in terms of number of stores in Sofia and the country," Boyko Sachanski, manager of Billa Bulgaria, said. The new store is Billa's 124th in the country. Last year, the company opened six new stores. Billa Bulgaria currently operates stores in 38 cities and towns in the country. Billa entered the Bulgarian market in 2000.

Plovdiv is again in the top ten of the Financial Times’s ranking for the most progressive places in the world. The city is ranked among the winners and Mayor Ivan Totev is invited to participate in the award ceremony of the FDI Location Awards. For the third year, the Plovdiv and Trakia Economic Zone have been awarded in the most prestigious investment rating, and the city takes part in two of the categories in this edition - "Return on investment" and "Education, skills and training". The acknowledgment comes from FDI Magazine's Global Cities of the Future 2018/19, FDI Strategy Awards 2018 (Strategic Prizes for Foreign Direct Investment 2018); Polish Cities of the Future 2019/20 (Cities of the Future 2019/20, Published in 2019); FDI Reinvestment and ROI Rankings (Reinvestment and Return on Investment). The ranking evaluates the good investment climate resulting from sustainability in production.

UniCredit said net profits more than doubled in the fourth quarter, boosted by a tax gain, as the Italian bank reported its best underlying performance for a decade and rebounded from litigation provisions and business writedowns earlier in the year. Italy’s largest bank by assets said net operating profit for last year was 13 per cent higher than the previous year at €6.4bn, the highest level since 2008. The Milan-based lender is in the final year of a turnround plan designed to shrink bad loans and cut costs. Chief executive Jean-Pierre Mustier, who launched the plan when he took over in 2016, said it was “well ahead of schedule”.Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. The bank had already achieved its target to cut 14,000 jobs and has reached 93 per cent of the goal to close 944 of its more than 5,000 branches. Operating expenses were already below the target, said Mr Mustier, who will unveil a new strategic plan in December. The latest earnings show Mr Mustier’s strategy is still on track after it missed profit forecasts in the third quarter, when it took a €846m writedown on its Turkish operations and booked provisions for past violations of US sanctions.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from China continue to attract opposition from economists and much of the business community. They also may be delivering on at least one goal of the administration’s trade wars: reducing imports of targeted products from China. In a new study, economists at the Institute of International Finance found 25 percent tariffs imposed last summer on a $50 billion list of more than 1,000 products ranging from electric cars to industrial seals and medical imaging machines reduced both the value and volume of those products imported from China. They also found that 10 percent tariffs on a further $200 billion in imports that took effect in late September had less of an impact and had led to a well-documented pre-tariff surge in imports as companies sought to get ahead of the tariffs. The IIF study released Tuesday affirms one of economics’ founding truths -- raise a price on a product and demand for that product tends to fall.

Indonesia posted slightly stronger economic growth in 2018, data showed on Wednesday, but it still fell well short of President Joko Widodo's seven percent target as elections draw closer. Southeast Asia's biggest economy expanded 5.17 per cent on-year, ticking up from 5.10 per cent in 2017 and beating most analyst forecasts. Domestic spending was a key driver, the statistics agency said, as the commodities-driven economy weathered rocky global demand. "This growth is quite an accomplishment... given uncertainty in the global economy and fluctuating commodity prices," said statistics agency head Suhariyanto, who goes by one name. However, Indonesia has reported a widening trade deficit in recent months while its manufacturing sector shrank in January, the first contraction in a year which underlined a slowdown in production. "This kind of growth is not sustainable because it is driven by consumption instead of production," said Enny Sri Hartati, executive director of Jakarta-based Institute for Development of Economics and Finance. Lacklustre prices for key commodities, including palm oil and coal, were likely to weigh on Indonesia's economy, according to research house Capital Economics.