Bulgaria's industrial producer price index (PPI) rose 4.3% year-on-year in April, after increasing 4.6% in February, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said. On a monthly comparison basis, producer prices edged up 0.4% in April, after adding 0.7% in the previous month, the NSI said in a monthly report on producer prices in industry. The PPI on the domestic market climbed 4.0% on the year and edged up 0.4% month-on-month in April. The PPI on the non-domestic market advanced 4.7% on the year and was up 0.4% compared to the value recorded in March.

People with higher education in Sofia are twice as many as those in the country. The average monthly income per capita in the capital is BGN 661, compared to BGN 488 in 2017. There are a lot more young people in working age living here - 77% under 60 years, compared to 68% for the country. All this affects the higher satisfaction of the health and life of the citizens of Sofia as a whole. People, however, are less satisfied with income levels and the cost of living. Parameters indicate that 91% of people are happy to live in this city. And despite many problems, 57% of respondents believe the city is evolving to a better place to live. People like shopping, culture, education and the public transport. Citizens are critical of air quality and noise levels, city cleanliness and the state of the streets and buildings, the cost of living and security. The level of quality of life is lower in the northern and western regions of the city. This is accompanied by lower self-esteem and lower levels of satisfaction from different aspects of urban life. People's dissatisfaction with public spaces and green zones varies from 30 to 49%.

Eurohold has chosen three Western investment banks to participate in financing the transaction for CEZ's assets in Bulgaria. This is reported by the Czech newspaper Lidove News. The holding has exclusive buyer status in the negotiations with CEZ. Asen Hristov, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Eurohold, said they had turned to seven banks. Five of them were ready to participate in the project, three were selected in the final. "These are Western investment banks, which are in the top 10," Hristov says. He did not indicate which are the financial institutions, because the contracts are not yet finalized, the procedure for receiving letters of engagements are to be submitted to CEZ.

The GEFCO Group develops and offers its partners a wide range of logistics services, in particular multimodal solutions including land, air, sea and rail transport. The company is an European leader in automotive rail logistics with 4100 own wagons, a corporate announcement shows. Since the beginning of this year, the subsidiary GEFCO Bulgaria has made several important steps in strengthening its rail solutions - a development strategy that is fully in line with the GEFCO Group vision. The first of these steps is the signing of a cooperation agreement with Bulgarian State Railways EAD (BDZ). This means that GEFCO Bulgaria will be able to offer better conditions to its customers as well as more control over transport and the possibility of offering more flexibility to solutions involving rail transport.

The British media company Financial Times will move one more key product and technology development team to Sofia. By the end of May, the new FT Specialist department will become part of the Financial Times office in Sofia, which opened at the beginning of the year. The FT Specialist portfolio includes brands such as Investor Chronicle, fDi Intelligence and The Banker. The team, which will be based in Sofia, will take care of the development of digital products and the preparation of initiatives for their development. For that purpose, by the end of 2019, FT will open another 30 new jobs. It will look for software engineers, product managers, business analysts, product designers, and other experts to become part of the unit. We recall that at the end of 2018, the Financial Times transferred its main technology team FT Core to Bulgaria. It is involved in the base platforms and systems that stand behind ft.com. On the Bulgarian market, FT works with Xoomworks, a British consulting company that helps build the operational processes here.

Bulgaria's competition authority said that local Allterco's deal for the sale of five of its subsidiaries to Norway's LINK Mobility Group does not need the regulator's clearance. The combined annual turnover of the two companies in Bulgaria stands below the minimum threshold of BGN 25 million, which means they can proceed with the transaction without needing to notify the anti-trust body, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) said. In December 2018, Allterco received approval from its shareholders to sell its units in Bulgaria - Teravoice, Tera Communications and Allterpay, as well as its Romania-based subsidiary Teracomm RO and Macedonia-based Tera Communications DOOEL, to LINK Mobility Group for at least EUR 7.9 million. The deal was initially expected to be completed by the end of April 2018, but the negotiations between the contracting parties were temporarily suspended as Victory Partners VII Norway launched a takeover bid for LINK Mobility Group last year.

Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission has granted approval to local brokerage Deltastock for a BGN 4.8 million capital decrease. The regulator did not provide further details in its statement. Earlier this year, Deltastock said its shareholders have approved the management's proposal to decrease the company's capital to BGN 4.2 million from BGN 9 million because the company is overcapitalised. The forex and CFD brokerage intends to carry out the capital cut by repurchasing part of its own shares and subsequently cancelling them. In 2017, Deltastock increased its capital to BGN 9 million from BGN 3.3 million. Sofia-based Deltastock, established in 1998, provides integrated online trading services.

Interest and insurance policy receipts from TBI Bank's loan portfolio reached EUR 88.9 million in 2018, up 22% year-on-year. Net profit for 2018 amounted to EUR 14.5 million, the audited consolidated financial results show. The Bank's assets have increased by almost 10% annually and by the end of 2018 reached EUR 397 million. The loans granted in 2018 amounted to EUR 282 million, which increased the bank's total loan portfolio by 20%, reaching EUR 313 million at the end of 2018. At the end of 2018, the Bank demonstrated strong and secure positions against the capital and liquidity of the bank - the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) is at 22.5% and the liquidity ratio - 31.5%. TBI Bank remains among the most profitable banks in Bulgaria, taking into account high performance in the key profitability indicators. At the end of December 2018, the return on the serviced portfolio was 31%. TBI Bank is part of the 4Finance Group and operates in Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and Sweden. Through a network of over 6,600 sales points, the company serves more than 1.2 million registered customers.

The EU issued a double warning to Rome about the precarious state of Italian public finances. The European Commission expressed its concerns over last year's debt at the same time Italy's populist leaders examine the possibility of flouting eurozone budget discipline and reversing unpopular economic reforms. Brussels took issue with the country's rising level of debt in a letter to Economy Minister Giovanni Tria. "Italy is confirmed not to have made sufficient progress toward the debt reduction criterion in 2018," said the letter, signed by EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis and the bloc's Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici. Italy only won EU approval for its 2019 budgetafter reducing its deficit to levels that were deemed to be acceptable. However, Rome went on to roll back austerity-inspired reforms and far-right deputy premier Matteo Salvini is now promising big tax cuts. The Commission gave the Italian government until Friday to respond with arguments disputing its assessment.

U.S. economic growth last quarter was revised down by less than expected amid stronger consumption and exports than initially reported, suggesting the expansion was on relatively firm footing before President Donald Trump’s escalation of the trade war with China. Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased at a 3.1% annualized rate in the January-March period, compared with an initially reported 3.2% and analyst estimates for a revision to 3%, Commerce Department data showed Thursday. Consumer spending, which accounts for the majority of the economy, grew 1.3%, topping projections for an unrevised 1.2% though still the slowest in a year. The figures may alleviate some investor concern that the economy is losing momentum -- highlighted by an inversion in part of the Treasury yield curve -- and potentially help Trump as he starts his reelection campaign. At the same time, recent reports suggesting a dimmer outlook this quarter, along with the intensifying tariff conflict, are casting a shadow over an expansion poised to become the nation’s longest on record in July.

Huawei has set up a research center in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, aiming for innovation in the areas of 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and construction of digital government, local authorities said. The city government said the center would have more cooperation with local universities and scientific research institutes, including the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Huawei's cooperation with USTC began in 1997, when they jointly established an institute of information technology. The two sides have since carried out more than 150 scientific research projects. Huawei has become the largest employer of USTC graduates over the past years, with over 1,000 alumni now working for the tech giant. As one of the top universities in China, USTC will have in-depth cooperation with Huawei in various areas including AI, wireless communication, coding technology, speech processing, service robot.