The World Bank raised its GDP growth forecast for Bulgaria to 3.2% in 2019 in its latest Migration and Brain Drain report, up from 3% projected in June. The WB also upped the economic growth projections for 2020 and 2021 to 3% and 3.1%, respectively, while in June it expected 2.8% growth rate for these years. The WB’s forecast nevertheless remains the most pessimistic among other IFIs, as the EC and the IMF expect 3.3% GDP growth in 2019 and the government - 3.4%. Bulgaria’s economic growth was expected to stay above the EU average over the mid-run, but a slowdown was forecast to take place in H2 and in 2020 due to deteriorating external environment and its negative effect on exports. Final consumption will continue to be the main economic growth driver in H2, on the back of solid increases in employment and salaries, as well as pension hikes, the WB said. The WB also projected investment growth to pick up in H2 given the local election on Oct 27 and the purchase of F-16 fighter jets. The approaching end of the current EU program period is another factor which will boost investment in the mid-run.

Bulgaria industrial production fell for the third straight month in August, data from the National Statistical Institute showed. Industrial production declined 1.3 percent year-on-year in August, following a 1.0 percent drop in July. Manufacturing output fell 0.8 percent annually in August, following a 1.3 percent decrease in the previous month. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply production declined 4.6 percent and output of mining and quarrying fell 1.3 percent. On a monthly basis, industrial production fell 0.1 percent in August, after a 0.7 percent rise in the preceding month. Separate data from the statistical office showed that the retail sales climbed 2.0 percent year-on-year in August, following a 3.8 percent climb in July. On a month-on-month basis, retail sales fell 0.3 percent in August, after a 0.7 percent growth in the prior month.

BGN 530 million is Eurohold's investment program in the network now owned by CEZ Bulgaria until 2023. This was made clear during the presentation of a strategy for the development of Eastern European Electric Company B.V., which will be the new owner's energy business if the deal is successful. Investments up to 2020 are BGN 270 million and for the next regulatory period they are BGN 260 million. The possible new owner of CEZ's assets is to reduce electricity losses by introducing and expanding intelligent remote control systems and meter reading. It will also rely on decision-making systems and forecasting support and adequate allocation of investment. A system will be introduced to reduce the time and frequency of emergency breaks. The customer will be notified of the power outage and that the company knows about it. It will not rely, as it is now, on a 3-year asset review, but on network management technologies as well as detailed diagnostics, including thermal drones and GPS drones. The strategy will work if the deal between Eurohold and CEZ is finalized.

Six months after the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC) and the Bulgarian-American Credit Bank (BACB) entered into a strategic partnership to enter the fintech market, the project came under the sole control of the bank, which explained the move as part of its acceleration. The licensing of the newly established company Paytech as an electronic money company is expected and is likely to involve a new partner as a technology provider. This would allow BACB to offer its own fintech product and start working with consumers. Paytech, a joint venture between the largest telecom in the country and one of the medium-sized banks in the market, was set up in April this year with a capital of BGN 1 million, with each partner having an equal share. The project received the approval of the CPC, which gave green light to its founders for entering the dynamically developing market for fintech services in Bulgaria. There is already one telecom out there - A1, which offers a mobile wallet, as well as a number of popular companies such as Phyre or Paysera.

6 Bulgarian banks rank in the Top 100 of the largest vaults in Central and Eastern Europe. The ranking is composed by RIA Rating Agency on the order of the leading Russian financial site Prime. UniCredit Bulbank is ranked 42nd; DSK is 57th, United Bulgarian Bank is 69th, First Investment Bank is 76th, Postbank is 88th, and Raiffeisen's branch in this country holds 91st position. The banks have improved their performance compared to 2018. The biggest jump is with UBB with 27 places. It has shown the best dynamics among the Top 100, with assets having grown by 46% to $ 6.6 billion after the merger with CIBank. DSK and First Investment Bank have significantly improved their positions in the ratings as the first one climbs 10 places up, and the second - 6 places.

Bulgaria's financial regulator has informed its Belgian counterpart that Euroclear Bank Belgium can offer settlement services in Bulgaria under the freedom to provide services in the European Economic Area. The Financial Supervision Commission did not provide further details in its statement. Euroclear Bank is among the world's largest providers of settlement and related securities services for cross-border transactions involving domestic and international bonds, equities, derivatives and investment funds.

The Plovdiv-based company Tomov Development has acquired 93.99% of the capital of Velina JSC, Velingrad. The company owns the Velina Hotel in the balneology resort. Sellers of the main packages are private investors with 48.46% or 741 383 shares and with 690 000 shares or 45.1%. The deals are from September 30 and October 2, 2019 at prices ranging from BGN 8.35 to BGN 8.4 per share. In total, they are selling 93.62% for the amount of BGN 11 977 048. Velina reports a consolidated loss of BGN 87 thousand for the first half of 2019, compared to minus BGN 82 thousand for the same period of 2018. Revenues for the half-year of 2019 are BGN 880 thousand, compared to BGN 961 thousand for the same period last year.

The European Union is poised to extend Brexit talks into as late as next summer after the European council and commission presidents dismissed Boris Johnson’s strategy as a “blame game”. A “range of dates” will now be in play at the meeting of European leaders next week but sources suggested the natural cut-off date would be June. With an extension of the UK’s EU membership now looking inevitable, other diplomatic sources suggested an unlikely outlier for an end date could even be ahead of a possible general election so as to force the Commons into accepting a deal. “But politicians like to keep things off their plates for as long as possible and so pushing it longer seems more realistic,” a senior EU diplomat said. The negotiations over a deal are said to be effectively dead in Brussels after Downing Street’s extraordinary claims over the substance of a phone call between the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UK prime minister.

Twitter "inadvertently" used phone numbers and email addresses its users provided for account security purposes to target ads, the company said. In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Facebook had broken the law when it engaged in a similar practice. The FTC fined Facebook $5 billion for that and a litany of other instances where it mishandled user data. Twitter users are asked to provide information like their phone number to help secure their account through services such as two-factor authentication. "We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make everyone aware," the company said in a blog post Tuesday. It said no personal data had been shared externally. Phone numbers provided to Twitter for the purpose of two-factor authentication were recently exposed as a hacking vulnerability as well. A hacker or hackers were able to tweet from the account of CEO Jack Dorsey by convincing Twitter's systems that they had his phone and were texting the tweets to his account.

A draft amendment to China’s Statistics Law will make officials and their bosses directly accountable for data accuracy and also increase the ceiling on fines for companies that report false information. The draft amendment was published by the National Bureau of Statistics. If passed, the amendment would mean statistics agencies at the county level and above have to set up an accountability mechanism to prevent fake data, and punish those responsible as well as their bosses. It will also raise a ceiling on fines for companies that report inaccurate or incomplete data to 500,000 yuan ($70,000) from 200,000 yuan under the current law. Anyone committing “dereliction of duty” should be “held accountable and responsible leaders and the people directly responsible should be called to account for data fabrication,” the draft amendment says. It adds that the government department appointing the officials or the country’s discipline watchdog should hold people accountable if they “shelter or connive in” illegal activities, tip off law breakers or fail to implement appropriate data standards.