The population of Bulgaria has decreased by almost 2 million people from 1989 to 2019, said Prof. Ph.D. Penka Naydenova from the Population Studies and Training Center, as well as an expert on demography and programs at the United Nations Population Fund. She points out that in 1989 the population of the country was nearly 9 million, and now it is just under 7 million. The main reason for the decline is not emigration but mortality. "About 2/3 of these two million are due to the negative natural population growth, ie. the difference between low birth rates and high mortality rates. The remaining 1/3 have left the country," said the specialist. At the same time, currently, the birth rate in Bulgaria is almost twice lower than the death rate, with data showing that about 115,000 Bulgarians die annually and live born children are about 62,000.Thus Bulgaria’s population decline with about 50 to 60 thousand people. However, people who choose to migrate abroad are not included. The grim statistics outline a permanent decline in the country's population, and if the pace is maintained, by 2040 the Bulgarians (in Bulgaria) will be around 5.5 million, and in 2100 - about 3 million.

The price of the third party liability insurance in Bulgaria may increase up to 400% after the introduction of the new Bonus-malus system, the new draft of the Financial Supervision Commissionsubmitted for public consultations envisages. The calculation of the insurance premium will be based on road traffic violations in seven categories and drivers will be divided into several classes. The price discount may reach 23% or 25% depending on the class of the driver. However, those who violate road traffic rules may pay up to four times more. According to the new version of the Bonus-malus scheme, the insurance will be tied to the owner of the vehicle and the driver, but not to the car itself. In 2020 the competent authorities will start making an individual portfolio of road traffic violations of each driver which will be later used for the calculation of the premium of the compulsory third party liability insurance and the new Bonus-malus system will be enforced in 2021.

National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC) has signed a contract worth more than BGN 498.8 million, excluding VAT, with a consortium for the modernisation of the Elin Pelin-Vakarel railway line, between Sofia and Plovdiv. NRIC said in a statement that the section between Elin Pelin and Vakarel would be the most difficult to implement of all the line between Sofia and Plovdiv. About 20km long, it is to include what will be the longest railway tunnel in Bulgaria and the Balkans, 6.8km long. Such a facility has not been built in Bulgaria since the 1950s, when in the period 1949-1951 the Koznitsa tunnel was built, linking Stara Planina and the Sredna Gora mountain. The contractor is Dzhen-Duy Railway Elin Pelin, and it includes the Turkish companies Duygu Mühendislik İnşaat and Cengiz. The implementation period is 72 months (six years).

A new woodworking shop will be bullt in place of the former winery in Elena. The owner of the 23 decare site is Elena Bor, which will invest nearly BGN 3 million in construction and modern equipment. The new workshop will produce euro pallets for the domestic and the foreign markets. Euro pallets are made from high quality wood. The boards for them must meet the set standards for its type - thickness, degree of humidity. The name "euro pallets" comes from the standardization of pallets used in the European Union. The idea is to have the same design, to be manufactured to the same standards so that they can be used anywhere in the world. At first, Elena Bor will launch a billet line with capacity 20 cubic metres per day. The Stara Zagora company ELTE Engineering has been selected for the construction of the site, and the intentions of the company are the new workshop to start working in 7-8 months.

The profit growth of the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) for the first nine months is almost 50%, while for the same period last year the financial institution made a profit of BGN 22 million. The growth of the Bank's financial result is significantly higher than the average for the banking system in Bulgaria, which is with an annual increase of 4.2%. Since its profit for 2018, BDB has distributed a dividend of BGN 20.1 million to the state budget. The Bulgarian Development Bank has the highest capital adequacy in Bulgaria. At the end of September it was 31%. The BDB's liquidity coverage ratio is 558%, well above the banking system average and well above the 100% regulatory coverage requirement. The gradual development of the lending activity in support of the development of the national economy continues, with an increase of 9% in the loans granted by BDB for the first nine months, which places the bank in the top 10 of the financial institutions in the country with the most loans to enterprises. The rating agency Fitch affirmed BBB's rating "BBB", changing its outlook to stable.

The Greece-Bulgaria interconnector will be ready by the end of 2020, Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova assured at a session of the Energy Commission in Parliament. Construction of the interconnector between Greece and Bulgaria should be completed in parallel with the completion of the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline. In this way, the contract between Bulgargaz and the Azerbaijan company SOCAR for the supply of 1 billion cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz 2 deposit will be fulfilled. MEPs approved a bill ratifying a guarantee agreement between Bulgaria and the European Investment Bank (EIB) in connection with a contract for financing the Greece-Bulgaria interconnection gas link between the EIB and Bulgarian Energy Holding signed on October 10, 2019. The loan is up to EUR 109.9 million and the repayment period is three years.

Bulgarian cosmetics maker Lavena said that its consolidated net profit in the first nine months of 2019 grew to BGN 1.4 million from BGN 1 million in the same period of 2018. Lavena's revenue rose to BGN 15.4 million in the January-September period of 2019 from BGN 12.8 million in the comparable period of last year. Total operating expenses increased to BGN 13.9 million in the review period from BGN 11.7 million the year before, mainly due to a rise in expenses for materials and hired services. Lavena spent BGN 6.7 million on materials in January-September 2019, compared to BGN 6.3 million a year earlier, while expenses for hired services rose to BGN 2.4 million from BGN 2.1 million. Lavena was majority-owned by local company Baltimore at the end of September.

Profits at British professional and business services firms dropped by the most since 2011 for a second quarter running and businesses are cutting back on investment, the Confederation of British Industry said on Thursday. CBI surveys have regularly painted a downbeat picture of Britain’s economy as businesses face political uncertainty created by Brexit and, more recently, a national election on Dec. 12. “The current economic climate is holding back UK services firms, which are reporting falling sentiment, declining volumes and weaker profitability. Neither is the outlook expected to improve,” CBI chief economist Rain Newton-Smith said. The professional and business services profitability gauge held at August’s level of -25, the lowest since November 2011, while plans to invest in vehicles, plant and machinery were the weakest since 2010. Overall optimism for consumer services firms fell again albeit at a slightly slower pace of -25 in November compared with -28 in August, while for business and professional services companies it picked up to -20 from -31. Britain’s services sector accounts for about 80% of the economy which grew by 1.0% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2019, the weakest since early 2010, official figures showed earlier this month. The services sector grew 1.4%, but depended more on government spending than at any time since early 2013.

John Deere has delivered a gloomy outlook for profits next year, as the woes of the US farming industry catch up with the biggest maker of agricultural equipment. The US company, which is known for its green and yellow tractors, said a combination of the trade war with China and poor weather conditions left American farmers more cautious about writing big cheques for equipment. The farming industry has been one of the higher-profile casualties of Donald Trump’s trade war with China, which has targeted US agricultural imports in retaliation. Deere’s forecasts for 2020 imply that profits could drop by almost a fifth from this year. “Trade tensions coupled with a year of difficult growing and harvesting conditions have caused many farmers to become cautious about making major investments in new equipment,” chief executive John May said on Wednesday. The drag from US farmers has been compounded for Deere by a slowdown in Europe and economic turmoil in Argentina. Shares in the $53bn manufacturer dropped 5 per cent after its warning. However, John Lagemann, Deere’s senior vice-president of agriculture and turf, said that there were reasons for optimism. The age of the current fleet of equipment in the US is at its highest in a decade, supporting the view “US customers will reach a point where they simply need to upgrade their equipment”.

Asia is “unable to feed itself” — and needs to invest another $800 billion in the next 10 years to produce more food and meet the region’s needs, according to a report. The population in Asia is growing, and consumers are demanding safer, healthier, and more sustainable food. Food spending will more than double — from $4 trillion in 2019 to over $8 trillion by 2030, said the Asia Food Challenge Report which was released last week. “Asia is unable to feed itself, relying on imports flowing through long supply chains from the Americas, Europe and Africa,” according to the report that was released Nov. 20. That’s consistent with research from a 2018 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report. “In general, countries in Latin America, East Africa and South Asia are net food exporters, while most of the rest of Asia and Africa remain net food importers,” the Key Statistics and Trends in International Trade report said. Climate change and population growth will also add to the region’s problems by causing supply issues, as well as price volatility. For one, extreme weather could reduce crop yields and change planting structures, said the report. The amount of arable land for each person in Asia is expected to decline by 5% by 2030, it said.