Bulgaria's trade deficit decreased to BGN 927.6 million in the first two months of 2019, from BGN 1.3 billion a year earlier, the country’s statistical office, NSI, said, quoting preliminary data. Exports FOB rose by 10.9% year-on-year to BGN 9.2 billion during January-February, while imports CIF increased by 5.2% to BGN 10.1 billion. Bulgaria ended 2018 with a trade deficit of BGN 7.7 billion, as the exports growth was hampered by softer external demand from large trading partners in the EU and Turkey.

Bulgaria and Romania remained the two EU member states with the lowest hourly labour costs in 2018, despite a year-on-year increase, Eurostat data shows. Bulgaria recorded the lowest hourly labour costs in the EU and among member states outside the euro area - BGN 10.5, even though remunerations in the country rose 6.9% year-on-year in 2018. In comparison, in 2017 Bulgaria and Romania were at the bottom of the Eurostat statistics with hourly labour costs BGN 9.6 and RON 28.9, respectively. Eurostat estimated the average hourly labour costs for the previous year at EUR 27.4 in the EU and EUR 30.6 in the euro area, marking a significant gap between EU member states with the lowest estimates and the country at top of the statistics, Denmark, with hourly labour costs of 43.5 euro. The estimated hourly labour costs include wages and salaries as well as non-wage costs like social contributions paid by employers. The National Statistical Institute said last month that hourly labour costs in Bulgaria rose by 5.1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to preliminary data.

The Czech company CEZ finally gave up on the deal for the sale of its Bulgarian assets to the Pazardzhik-based company Inerkom. The news came deom the spokesperson of the Czech company Alica Chorakova. CEZ signed a contract with the company of Ginka Varbakova at the end of February last year, but the deal met with serious opposition from the Commission for Protection of Competition, which saw a chance for monopoly on the market. Thus, in July, the CPC rejected Inerkom's demand for the purchase of CEZ, as the company owns six solar parks and threatened them with a monopoly. This puts the question whether another company with similar business in the country could buy CEZ's assets in Bulgaria. At the same time, the buyer and seller's companies can not reach 0.005% of the total electricity production in the country. But that is not all - the CPC said that the transaction would bring a significant advantage to the candidates for the deal over their competitors, which in turn would impede effective competition in the analyzed markets. CEZ Bulgaria, however, is the largest of the three EWCs in Bulgaria even now.

VMware Bulgaria is investing BGN 46.1 million in a project for expanding its capacity both in terms of developing new products and increasing the number of its employees. The investment will create 500 jobs, the ministry said in a statement upon awarding VMware with a Class A investment certificate for the project. VMware has invested over BGN 350 million in Bulgaira since it entered the market in 2007. VMware Bulgaria is part of US-based cloud computing company VMware. Last year, VMware Bulgaria said it is planning to double the number of its employees to 1,500 in the next few years.

Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) has banned local arms maker Emko's planned acquisition of local peer Dunarit. Combining the market positions of both companies would strengthen their economic power and would allow them to act independently of other market participants. The two companies have a dominant position in terms of the production of some special types of defence equipment. Widening the two companies' product portfolio might encourage them to raise their prices and revise the terms of their deliveries. The regulator launched an in-depth probe into the acquisition in February, in line with an earlier ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC). In January, the SAC cancelled a decicion by the competition regulator dating back to 2016 to let the deal move ahead without analysing it. Back in 2016, when Emko notified the competition regulator of the planned acquisition, CPC decided that it would not look into the deal because the combined turnover of the two companies was below the regulatory limit.

Bulgarian brokerage Up Trend is planning to start offering its services in Denmark and Finland, according to a statement by the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC). Bulgaria's financial regulator has notified its peers in Denmark and Finland of Up Trend's intention to offer its services without setting up a branch in any of the two countries. The FSC did not provide further details in its statement. Established in 1997, Up Trend has been a member of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange and Central Depository since 1998. The company holds a license to operate in the EU and European Economic Area.

Billa Bulgaria, the local arm of supermarket chain Billa owned by Germany's REWE Group, will open a new store in Sofia-based shopping mall Paradise Center on April 17. The new store will be Billa's 126th in the country. Earlier this month, Billa Bulgaria said that it will invest over BGN 34 million in 2019 in the opening of new stores and renovation of existing ones. Its plans include opening new stores in Sofia-based shopping centres The Mall and Paradise Center. The company currently operates 125 stores in 38 Bulgarian cities. Billa Bulgaria has opened one new store so far this year, following six launches last year. Billa entered the Bulgarian market in 2000.

The initial public offering of payment-service company Nexi SpA raised 2.01 billion euros, making it the biggest listing in Europe so far this year and the third major IPO of a payment-processing institution in the region in less than a year. Shares were offered at 9 euros each, giving the company a value of 7.3 billion euros including debt, the company said in a statement on its website. A mix of existing and new Nexi shares were sold to more than 340 investors from around the world, including more than 100 Italian investors. The offers includes a capital increase of 700 million euros. Nexi, whose investors include Advent International, Bain Capital and Clessidra SGR, will have free float of 35.6 percent. The proceeds from the capital increase will mainly be used to reduce debt, which will stand at 1.7 billion euros. The shares will start trading in Milan on April 16. The equity value for the company comes to about 5.7 billion euros. The European IPO market is showing signs of life after a sluggish start to the year amid investor appetite for fintech players fueled by growth prospects and M&A speculation after a number of deals.

U.S. negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a trade deal after strong resistance from Beijing, according to two sources briefed on discussions, marking a retreat on a core U.S. objective for the trade talks. The world’s two biggest economies are nine months into a trade war that has cost billions of dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods to press demands for an end to policies - including industrial subsidies - that Washington says hurt U.S. companies competing with Chinese firms. China responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods. The issue of industrial subsidies is thorny because they are intertwined with the Chinese government’s industrial policy. Beijing grants subsidies and tax breaks to state-owned firms and to sectors seen as strategic for long-term development. Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened the state’s role in parts of the economy. In the push to secure a deal in the next month or so, U.S. negotiators have become resigned to securing less than they would like on curbing those subsidies and are focused instead on other areas where they consider demands are more achievable, the sources said.

Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell liquefied natural gas to a Japanese utility at prices that include a link to coal, the latest innovation in the booming LNG market where buyers are seeking to diversify risks. In what Shell and its customer, Tokyo Gas, said is the world’s first such contract, the 10-year deal includes a pricing formula that is based on coal indexation. By diversifying its price exposure for LNG, which has historically been linked to oil, costs of the fuel will be stabilized, Toshio Kawamura, a general manager with Tokyo Gas, said in a briefing Friday. This type of deal would allow a utility to align the pricing of its LNG with changes in the coal market, and therefore better compete in its own power market, said Christopher Goncalves, chair of the energy practice at Berkeley Research Group. This is “a risk management strategy for somebody who is competing with coal-fired generation in the home market,” Goncalves said. “That is attractive in places which have a lot of coal-fired generation, such as China, India and Japan.” Coal and natural gas face off as power generation fuel in several markets. In the U.S., cheap and abundant gas has decimated coal’s share from more than 50% as recently as 2008 to less than 25% last year.