The total monetary resource available in the State Fund to Guarantee the Stability of the State Pension System, known as the "Silver Fund", amounts to EUR 2.928 billion. This is clear from the data on the Ministry of Finance (MF). Of this amount EUR 2.922 billion is formed in annual deposits with the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) by decisions of the Fund's Board of Directors. Transferred funds to the guarantee fund in the Social Security Fund in January amount to EUR 5.74 million. For the whole of 2018, the transfer is over EUR 136.5 million from EUR 128 million in 2017. Under the long-term investment policy adopted and the medium-term investment strategy of the Fund in the period 2019-2021, the funds will be deposited with the BNB until 2021 and most likely by 2040. Reserve money for pensions, which must ensure stability of the pension system, is to be managed as conservative as currently.

New residential buildings completed in Bulgaria in the fourth quarter of 2018 increased by an annual 10.2% to 721, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said. The total useful space of newly built dwellings rose 19.6% year-on-year to 231,200 sq m in the last quarter of 2018, the NSI said in a statement. The highest number of completed residential buildings in the review period was in Varna - 102. Plovdiv and Burgas followed with 88 and 74 new residential buildings, respectively Houses constituted 79.5% of all new residential buildings in the fourth quarter of last year.

Sensor systems manufacturer Sensata Technologies Bulgaria, a unit of Belgium-based Sensor-Nite, broke ground for a USD 27 million new production and storage facility in the city of Botevgrad. The new building will have a total built-up area of 4,300 sq m. Some 300 people will be employed in the new plant. Sensata Technologies Bulgaria is a wholly-owned unit of Sensor-Nite, which in turn is part of U.S.-based Sensata Technologies, which manufactures sensing, electrical protection, control and power management solutions for the automotive and aviation industries. Sensata Technologies Bulgaria has two production bases - in Botevgrad and Plovdiv, and a testing laboratory in Sofia.

Renewable energy company Sevko Bulgaria has issued a BGN 25 million bond and is planning to invest the proceeds in the development of renewable energy projects and the acquisition of new land plots suitable for construction of photovoltaic parks and biomass plants. The eight-year issue consists of 25,000 bonds with a nominal value of BGN 1,000 each. The bonds' principal will be repaid in ten semi-annual installments, starting from July 2022. The issue matures in January 2027. In December 2018, Bulgaria's Capman Green Energy Fund acquired 100% of Sevko Bulgaria from local diversified group Holding Nov Vek for an undisclosed price. At the time, Capman Green Energy Fund said it intends to build a solar park on property owned by Sevko Bulgaria in the town of Sevlievo, in northern Bulgaria.

Edoardo Mirolio opens 24 DiKa company stores in France. They will be located in 24 bigger and smaller cities, and the first will be found in a few days in the capital, Paris. The deal on acquiring the right to rent the stores was concluded on February 5 this year, the Italian entrepreneur announced. The Bulgarian fashion brand DiKa is housed in the shops of a French retail chain whose sites are under liquidation. They are of different size and different term of use. The deal is worth EUR 2 million, Edoardo Miroglio said. He will keep 40 of the staff, who has worked in the shops of the French company. The advent of DiKa on the the French fashion market is just at a time when many of the world's manufacturers of fashion apparel shrink their production targets and close whole chains. However, this may be an advantage for the Bulgarian brand, aimed at the business woman. On February 13, the DiKa store in Paris will be on the iconic Rue de Renne shopping street.

Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition has fined local Balkam Group BGN 2.6 million, or 6% of the company's turnover in 2017, for product imitation. Since December 2017, Balkam Group has produced and distributed ground coffee under the brand name Brazil Selection Gold, which was packaged in a way which imitates the original packaging of the Nova Brasilia coffee brand. Balkam Group produced the coffee by the order of Agro Foods Bulgaria, which in turn was fined BGN 40,000 by the competition authority. The regulator's decision follows proceedings launched at the request of Jacobs Douwe Egberts BG and Jacobs Douwe Egberts OPS BG - both wholly-owned units of Dutch-based Jacobs Douwe Egberts International. Balkam Group, established in 1994, offers coffee under several brands, including Spetema, LaVista, Santos Royal, Vendigo and other.

Bulgarian financial leasing company Elana Agrocredit has repaid early BGN 3.9 million of its loan from Societe Generale Expressbank. Elana Agrocredit used funds from the sale of real estate to make the payment. At the end of 2018, the remaining principal of the loan was BGN 5.4 million. Elana Agrocredit took out the BGN 10 million loan in 2016 and has to fully repay it by 2024. Elana Agrocredit offers financing to agricultural producers.

Italy's UniCredit Group said that its net profit from operations in Bulgaria rose by an annual 3% to EUR 215 million in 2018, following a rise in revenue. The lender's operating income in Bulgaria added 1.3% to EUR 479 million last year, largely due to a 30.5% increase in net trading income to EUR 63 million. Net interest income fell 5.9% to EUR 287 million, while net fee and commission income grew 7.6% to EUR 127 million. The bank's operating costs in Bulgaria rose 4.2% to EUR 147 million. UniCredit Group's operations in Bulgaria include UniCredit Bulbank and UniCredit Leasing. UniCredit Bulbank was Bulgaria's largest bank by assets at the end of 2018.

The UK economy expanded at its slowest annual rate in six years in 2018 after a sharp contraction in December. Growth in the year was 1.4%, down from 1.8% in 2017 and the slowest rate since 2012, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The ONS blamed falls in factory output and car production for the slowdown, among other factors. It follows forecasts of slower growth in 2019 due to Brexit uncertainty and a weaker global economy. According to the ONS, quarterly growth also slowed, falling to 0.2% in the three months to December - down from 0.6% in the three months to September. However, Chancellor Philip Hammond said the data showed the economy remained "fundamentally strong" and that he did not foresee a recession. Head of GDP at the ONS Rob Kent-Smith said: "GDP slowed in the last three months of the year with the manufacturing of cars and steel products seeing steep falls and construction also declining. "However, services continued to grow with the health sector, management consultants and IT all doing well." A slowdown was expected. But the economy has hit the brakes harder than economists thought it would.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said the U.S. economy may be heading into a recession at a time when the Federal Reserve doesn’t have the firepower to properly combat a slump. “There seems to be an accumulation of smaller problems and the underlying backdrop is that we have no good policy response,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Dubai. The headwinds facing the economy prompted the Federal Reserve this month to halt its interest-rate hiking cycle, which Krugman said was never “grounded in the data” to begin with. “Continuing to raise rates was really looking like a bad idea,” he added. Krugman isn’t alone in seeing a gloomy outlook for the world’s biggest economy. U.S. chief financial officers in a Duke University survey published in December overwhelmingly said they expect a recession within two years. “I wouldn’t be as definitive, but it seems pretty likely,” Krugman said. While Krugman doesn’t expect a crisis of the magnitude of 2008, he said policy makers in Washington would struggle to contain large shocks. The economist, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, said it was hard to see the U.S. leadership “respond in any kind of a nimble way.”

China’s foreign exchange reserves rose slightly more than expected in January as the yuan rallied on hopes for progress in Sino-U.S. trade talks that could lift some pressure on the cooling Chinese economy. China’s reserves rose by $15.2 billion in January - the biggest increase in a year - to $3.088 trillion, central bank data showed on Monday. That compared with a rise of $11 billion in December. Economists polled by Reuters had expected an increase of $9.3 billion. The relatively modest rise in China’s reserves in January was due to an appreciation of non-dollar currencies and increases of the prices of financial assets it holds, the foreign exchange regulator said in a statement. China struck an upbeat note on Monday as trade talks resumed with the United States, but also expressed anger at a U.S. Navy mission through the disputed South China Sea, casting a shadow over the prospect for improved Beijing-Washington ties. Many analysts are doubtful Beijing will agree to Washington’s demands for major structural reforms, but believe the two sides may find enough common ground to keep talking and postpone a U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods that is slated for March 1.