EU households spent more than 200 billion US dollars or 1.3% of EU’s GDP on communications in 2018, Eurostat said. This represents 2.3% of total household expenditure. Communications include postal services, telephones and telexes. Households in Bulgaria have the largest share of communications spending - 4.8% of their total expenditures. By this indicator Bulgaria is followed by Greece with 4.4%, Romania with 4.1% and Croatia with 4%. Families in Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Austria spend the less - 1.3 to 1.9% on communications. Expenditures for communications have seen the biggest drop compared to other household expenditures in the EU over the past decade from 2.8 to 2.3%. Communication prices fell the most in Estonia - by 3.8 per cent and the least in Bulgaria - 0.6 per cent, while in Romania they rose by 2.3 per cent.

The international rating agency Standard & Poor (S&P) Global Ratings upgraded Sofia's long-term credit rating from 'BBB-' to 'BBB', outlook positive, the Sofia Municipality press office reported. According to S&P Global Ratings analysts, after the local elections in Sofia, there is continuity that will ensure further financial stability and the maintained high liquidity. The international credit agency expects Sofia Municipality to continue to maintain the high level of its own revenues, as before. Sofia joined the cities with investment ratings in December 2017. The raising of the capital’s rating has happened a couple of days after Bulgaria’s credit rating was also raised. According to S&P Global Ratings rules, a city cannot be rated higher than its state.

The Imi Gluco Check company, registered in October in Bulgaria, has declared an investment intention to build a high-tech enterprise for the production of glucose test strips and glucose meters in Burgas. For this purpose, Egyptian-born owner Ismail Khalil wants to buy 2 plots in Industrial and Logistics Park Burgas, said Zlatina Georgieva, chairman of the industrial zone board of directors and a representative of the municipality of Burgas in the governing body of Industrial and Logistics Park Burgas. The production part of the enterprise will be built on an area of 5 decares. The amount of the innitially announced investment is BGN 20 million, and the owner's plans include the initial opening of about 20 jobs. The planned time for construction of the production premises is 24 months. Imi Gluck Check has no other representation in Europe. The investor was in neighboring countries - Romania and Serbia, he also inspected plots in Sofia. After two visits to the seaside town he chose Burgas. The presence of a port, an airport with cargo center and the proximity of Trakia Motorway are among the advantages of the seaside city, the investor stated.

Bulgaria is becoming an attractive investment destination not only for the production of auto parts, but also in another high-tech sector, such as aircraft manufacturing. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Economy Lachezar Borisov, who awarded a class A investor certificate to Latecoere Bulgaria SPLTD for the investment project "Assembly of metal components for the nose of the AIRBUS A350 aircraft". The investment under the certified project is worth BGN 5.574 million for expansion of the production of the French company plant in the economic zone in Radinovo. It would open 35 new jobs, as addition to the already working about 200 employees in production. Components are a new type of product for the company that has not been manufactured before. The Economy Deputy Minister emphasized that Bulgaria has the highest credit rating in the Balkans, financial and macroeconomic stability, qualified personnel, which is a prerequisite for more and more investors in the sector.

The Korean Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems Co., which is part of the Hyundai Heavy Industries group and the owner of Sofia's Transformer Plant Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Bulgaria, plans to withdraw from the country. The company will sell all its shares (over 99%) in the Bulgarian company for the sum of USD 24.5 million to an unnamed buyer. This became clear from a message from Hyundai Electric to the Korean Stock Exchange, published by Nice Information Services. The decision was made by the board late last week, with the deal expected to close by the end of the year. According to the official statement, the purpose of the deal is to improve the financial structure of the Korean company. Back in September, Hyundai Electric announced it would sell assets and market new shares to secure an additional 150 billion won (about EUR 114 million) in an attempt to improve its financial position. The bulk of the funds will be used to pay off debt and part of it will be invested in R&D.

Russian nuclear fuel cycle company TVEL, which is part of Russian state corporation Rosatom and Bulgaria’s Kozloduy NPP have signed a contract for the supply of Russian nuclear fuel to Bulgaria by 2025. The supplies will be complete and the nuclear plant will not need to buy enriched uranium on the market, it was reported. Kozloduy NPP operates two nuclear units – Unit 5 and Unit 6 of the type VVER-1000, which are loaded with Russian nuclear fuel produced by the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant. As of the end of 2016, a new generation of fuel called TBSA-12 has started to be delivered to Unit 6.

Bulgaria's Doverie United Holding said that a new supervisory board of Moldovan lender Moldindconbank has been appointed, with four out of its five members selected by the holding's unit Doverie-Invest. The fifth member of the supervisory board was selected by the minority shareholders of Moldindconbank. Doverie-Invest acquired 77.63% interest in Moldindconbank earlier this year. Initially, Doverie-Invest purchased a stake of 63.89% in a public tender, before adding a further 13.73% through a buyout bid. Moldindconbank had remained under temporary administration by Moldova's central bank until the new board was appointed. Doverie United Holding owns majority stakes in over 20 companies active in various sectors of the economy, including healthcare, insurance, banking, retail trade, real estate, and others.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has asked the EU for more control over the budgets of its Member States. The current requirements for national budgetary frameworks are "less stringent than international standards," according to a report by the Luxembourg Auditors. Also, the EU Commission is limited in monitoring compliance with the requirements. ECA auditors warn of the risk of divergence between EC assessments and those of Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) on Member States' compliance with EU fiscal rules, and of the limited effectiveness of the European Fiscal Council due to the fact that it is not completely independent from the Commission. In an effort to overcome the root cause of the financial crisis and improve fiscal governance, especially in the euro area, the Commission has decided to supplement the EU fiscal framework with binding national provisions. It asked Member States, inter alia, to establish NFIs, national fiscal rules and multiannual budgetary frameworks. The auditors verified that EU requirements strengthened national budgetary frameworks and whether the Commission evaluated their implementation by Member States.

United Airlines has ordered 50 Airbus A321XLR aircraft to replace an existing fleet of aging Boeing 757-200s jets. The Chicago-based airline said that the Airbus jets, a long-range version of the European manufacturer's single-aisle A321neo, are set to be delivered starting in 2024. The deal is estimated to be worth $6.5 billion. United Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said the Airbus jets will serve European destinations from east coast hubs in Newark/New York and Washington. The new Airbus aircraft's range is 15% higher than that of its predecessor, the A321LR, making it a cost-effective alternative to longer-range wide-body planes. The A321XLR's fuel tanks allow it to cover 8,700 kilometers in nine hours — significantly more than the Boeing 737 Max jet. The decision by United is a setback for Boeing. The American manufacturer, also based in Chicago, is reeling from the grounding of its 737 Max jets after two deadly crashes earlier this year. Boeing has no new aircraft to compete with the Airbus A321XLR in the mid-market range.

Capital investment by Chinese firms has ground to its slowest pace in three years, as a weakening economy, tight credit and prolonged trade war with the United States dent sales growth and cash reserves, a Reuters analysis showed. Companies are also spending more days to turn inventory into sales and eking out smaller profit gains, the analysis showed, in an economy growing at its weakest pace in nearly three decades, with many analysts expecting the slowdown to intensify. The outlook became even more uncertain on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said a trade deal with China might have to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020. “Things will get much worse before getting better,” economists at Macquarie said in a client note on Monday. Even positive economic data from China recently is volatile and vulnerable to one-off factors such as warm weather, they said. Chinese firms raised capital spending by 1.6% in the three months through September versus the same period a year prior, the weakest growth in three years, showed a Reuters analysis of about 2,900 firms with market capitalization above $100 million.