Increase of the minimum wage by 8.9% - from BGN 560 to BGN 610, and the minimum hourly wage to BGN 3.66 from January 1, 2020 is proposed by the Social Minister Biser Petkov in the Draft Council of Ministers Decree concerning the amount of minimum wage. The measure will stimulate labor market activity, contribute to raising the incomes of the lowest-income groups of employees and reduce income inequality and poverty, increase purchasing power and the standard of living of the population, states the reasons. The proposed minimum wage of BGN 610 as of January 1, 2020 has taken into account the objective economic and social reality, including sustainable positive dynamics of gross domestic product, growth of the average wage and compensation of employees in 2020, the index consumer prices and other economic indicators.

Short-term business statistics reported a slowdown in August, with turnover and industrial output declining as a result of adverse changes in most industries. This is indicated by the Finance Ministry's latest Monthly Survey of the Bulgarian Economy. The data show that the increase recorded in the production and distribution of electricity and heat continued to make a major contribution to the increase in domestic sales. Manufacture of metal products, except machinery and equipment, and manufacture of motor vehicles, excluding automobiles, played a major role in the growth in export turnover. Construction activity also slowed down as a result of the reported decline in civil engineering, while growth in retail trade was limited by the relatively slower growth in food, beverage and tobacco sales and the decline in medicines and medical supplies.

The state-run Fund of Funds (FOF) has made the first step towards creating a Technology Transfer Fund to finance cooperation between scientific institutes and businesses. The FOF has launched a bidding procedure to select the manager of the future facility, which will handle BGN 75.5 million in financial resources. The contemplated Technology Transfer Fund will invest between BGN 30,000 and BGN 1 million in each project which it supports. The beneficiaries can be either small, medium-sized, or large companies. The candidates for manager of the future fund will become known before Christmas.

The two Bulgarian banks which have been identified with some capital shortages at end-July, FiBank and Investbank, have already submitted their plans on how to address the issue to the ECB. The ECB has to approve the plans before their implementation but the approval should come easily as large part of the measures in the plans have been informally co-ordinated with experts from the ECB. The next step is related to the two banks’ implementation of the plans. They will have up to six months deadline to complete the planned measures. Bulgaria has already completed the bulk of the other requirements for ERM-II entry but the ECB and the EC will have to assess the progress. The ECB has to assess whether the amendments in the Bulgarian legislation including the upcoming adoption of the EU’s anti-money laundering directive have been sufficient. The other criteria included the stability of the Bulgarian non-banking financial sector and EIOPA recently gave an overall positive assessment of it, the improvement of the insolvency legal framework and the state-owned enterprises’ management, as well as raising the quality of the institutions. The final decision on Bulgaria’s ERM-II entry will not depend only on the ECB but also on the support of all Eurozone member states and Denmark.

Bulgaria's state-owned National Company Industrial Zones (NCIZ) has launched a BGN 1.3 million tender for the construction of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) at the Bozhurishte Economic Zone in the Sofia region. The contract envisages design, supply of materials and equipment, and construction. The deadline for submitting offers is December 18. Bids will be ranked based on price, with 60% weight in the final mark, and technical criteria. Bozhurishte Economic Zone hosts over 30 local and foreign companies, including JYSK, Behr-Hella Thermocontrol (BHTC), Multivak, Reisswolf and others. Investments in production plants and logistics facilities at Bozhurishte Economic Zone amount to some BGN 450 million to date.

Bulgaria's Slivnitsa municipality has signed a BGN 1.1 million deal with a consortium of Sofia-based Balkanika Energy and Nivel Stroy for the construction of a composting installation for sorted green waste. The contract was signed on October 23. The consortium will be also responsible for the project design and the delivery of the necessary equipment. The project benefits from EU financing. The Balkanika Energy-Nivel Stroy consortium has submitted the sole offer in the public procurement procedure for awarding the contract. Bids were ranked based on price and quality criteria, each with a 50% weight.

Bulgarian machine engineering company Hydraulic Elements and Systems (HES) expects its sales in the fourth quarter to fall by an annual 17% to BGN 13.25 million. The economic slowdown in Western Europe has led to a decline in the region's business sentiment, which already cost the company a 5.23% decrease in its sales in the third quarter. HES expects is full-year sales to amount to some BGN 61 million, just slightly down from BGN 61.9 million generated in 2018, thanks to the company's strong first half of 2019. HES is part of blue-chip industrial group Stara Planina Hold.

Germany plans to increase by half the grants available to buyers of electric cars over the five years from 2020, according to a government document seen by Reuters, the latest in a series of measures to speed the adoption of low-emissions vehicles. According to the document, due to be discussed at a meeting of high-level government and car-company officials on Monday evening, grants for plug-in hybrids will rise from 3,000 to 4,500 euros. For vehicles priced over 40,000 euros the grants will rise to 5,000 euros. The government wants to have 10 million electric vehicles on the roads by 2030, part of an offensive designed to turn round the German car industry’s perceived laggard status in e-mobility compared to its rivals in the United States and China. The paper came to light on the day that Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech at Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory, where the German watched the carmaker start mass production of its ID.3 electric car, a vehicle costing around 30,000 euros.

The United States has told the United Nations it has begun the process of pulling out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he submitted a formal notice to the United Nations. That starts a withdrawal process that does not become official for a year. His statement touted America’s carbon pollution cuts and called the Paris deal an “unfair economic burden” to the U.S. economy. Nearly 200 nations signed the climate deal in which each country provides its own goals to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that lead to climate change. “In international climate discussions, we will continue to offer a realistic and pragmatic model — backed by a record of real world results — showing innovation and open markets lead to greater prosperity, fewer emissions, and more secure sources of energy,” Pompeo said in a statement. With a hand-delivered letter, the U.S. is the first nation to pull out of the deal. Agreement rules prevented any country from pulling out in the first three years after the Nov. 4, 2016, ratification.

Chinese conglomerate Fosun has snapped up the Thomas Cook brand for 11 million pounds, weeks after the renowned British travel group went bust and left hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad. Thomas Cook's demise in September sparked 22,000 job losses worldwide and triggered Britain's biggest repatriation since World War II, with the government paying to fly home 140,000 tourists. The 178-year-old British institution declared bankruptcy in September after an attempt to secure USD 250 million from private investors fell through. Hong Kong-listed Fosun, which was already the biggest shareholder in Thomas Cook and also owns France-based resort giant Club Med, had backed out of the eleventh hour deal to keep the debt-plagued company afloat. Fosun will now take ownership of the brand rights to Thomas Cook as well as subsidiary hotel chains Casa Cook and Cook's Club under the terms of the purchase agreement, it said in a statement late Friday.