Pearl Property News & Blog

Bulgarian company Litex Motors and its Chinese partner Great Wall Motors plan to produce 50 000 cars per year within five years, announced Anton Dontchev,Litex Motors‘ representative in China, at the Bulgaria: Business UP conference.

“Our talks for partnership with Great Wall Motors started in November 2009, and we are very proud that exactly three years later the factory started manufacturing in Bulgaria. Our partner Great Wall Motors is the largest private Chinese car producers,” Dontchev revealed.

“What we are most proud of are the people working in our plant near the Northern Bulgarian city of Lovech. We currently employ 200 people, and hope to reach 1000 employees after expanding, and these are highly qualified laborers. In fact, our main argument before our Chinese partners was not the cheap labor cost in Bulgaria but the high skills and efficiency of the Bulgarian workers. The experts that we have hired as consultants, and each of whom has some 20-30 years of experience with Nissan, Mann, Fiat, state that these are some of the best people that they have ever worked with,” explained Litex Motors‘ representative in China, who is credited with bringing Great Wall’s car manufacturing investment to Bulgaria.

Dontchev did stress that the car manufacturing plant in the village of Bahovitsa near Bulgaria’s Lovech is a pilot project designed to convince the Chinese entrepreneurs that such an investment directed at the wider EU market is possible in Bulgaria.

“The produce of the Lovech plant is already on the market in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. We also have other projects, a project for a bus manufacturing plant, which is in an advanced phase, we hope to have specific results there as well by the end of 2012,” the Litex Motors executive revealed.

“All of that is good news for the Bulgarian economy,” Dontchev concluded, stating that Litex and Great Wall Motors have already started the second phase of the construction of the plant near Lovech, after in February 2012 the Litex Motorsplant successfully completed Great Wall’s quality audit, as is also advancing in the creation of the bus manufacturing plant.

The First International Investment Conference “Bulgaria: Business Up” started in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Friday.

“Bulgaria: Business UP” is a new initiative designed to analyze and promote Bulgaria’s advantages as a foreign investment destination.

The goal of the “Bulgaria: Business UP” investment conference is to present to the international business community the highly favorable investment climate in Bulgaria as well as the variety of opportunities for successful and sustainable business that the country has to offer.

“Bulgaria: Business UP” is organized by Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency), the largest Bularian English-language media, and Novinite.bg, a Bulgarian-language news website, together with the InvestBulgaria Agency.

Novinite

Photo: Julia Lazarova

Between 50 and 60 private property auctions have culminated in a sale but only one such case was recorded last year, according to data provided by website targ.bg during a seminar organised by imoti.net.

“About a third of private auctions end with a deal,” targ.bg owner Georgi Palpourin said. “However, the number of such auctions is negligible given that, at any time, there are often more than 2000 sales ads posted by private bailiffs. The Ministry of Justice is the only source with information on how many actually end in a deal since it gets the transaction reports.”

“Private property auctions are still somewhat of an oddity in Bulgaria. Still, they are useful for people who want to save time and money as they can sell their property within two months. However, the success of the undertaking depends on setting the right asking price. Sellers often try to extract the amount they paid for a property bought before the crisis but experts insist that a deal at such terms is impossible. Motivation to clinch a deal is the highest among people experiencing financial difficulties, which most often means they cannot service their bank debts. Public auctions also take place when a real estate agency has been unable to sell the property,” Palpourin said.

Inability to access credit has so far been the main problem facing buyers at property auctions. However, about a month ago First Investment Bank introduced a mortgage loan designed for that purpose.

“We have so far extended 12 chance mortgage loans for the purchase of properties sold by bailiffs,” retail banking chief Milka Todorova said. However, the bank is required to work with the bailiff who has declared the property for sale. First Investment Bank has signed agreements with bailiffs in Sofia, Varna, Stara Zagora, Shoumen, Bourgas and Pleven.

Sofia Echo

Work on extending Sofia's metro underground railway system - Photo: Nadezhda Chipeva

About a third of property sales in Bulgaria in 2011 were motivated by people wanting to get out of their investments, according to a January 16 2012 report by local television station bTV.

The report, quoting a real estate agency study, said that property prices continued to fall in 2011, by nine per cent in Sofia and an average seven per cent countrywide.

However, the number of transactions was stable, according to the bTV report.

The number of transactions conducted in local currency the lev increased against those in euro, a reaction to speculation that the European Union’s common currency was headed for collapse, the report said.

More than half of those buying did so to meet their household need for accommodation, while most sellers – about a third – had put their properties on the market to get out of the investments, bTV quoted the agency as saying.

Repeating a refrain heard for several years, the agency said that the shape of the property market in Sofia in 2012 would be determined by the expansion of the public transport network as the metro railway is extended.

The agency said that it expected a 15 per cent increase in transactions in the residential areas of Nadezhda, Druzhba and Banishora, while completion of work on a metro extension would benefit the residential district of Lozenets.

Sofia Echo

Photo: Nadezhda Chipeva

Weighed down by heavy snow, Bulgaria woke up on January 27 2012 to closed roads, snow drifts of up to two metres and 121 villages without electricity.

The situation in Rousse remained severe, Bulgarian National Television said.

Efforts were being made to restore traffic access for lorries bound for Romania while at border crossings with Greece and Turkey, lorries were being held at parking bays.

States of emergency had been declared on January 26 in Svoge, Lovech, Ivanovo, Lisichevo, Batak, Velingrad and Popovo.

Emergency teams from electricity distribution companies and civil defence teams were working on restoring power supplies and clearing roads.

Sofia Airport had cancelled flights to Frankfurt and Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Bourgas, according to Bulgarian National Television.

Overnight, snow in western Bulgaria had begun to stop but the situation remained difficult in the Danubian plain and in eastern Bulgaria.

A Code Orange weather warning was in force in Bourgas, Varna and Dobrich. Code Yellow was declared in the districts of Yambol, Sliven, Turgovishte, Rousse, Razgrad, Silistra and Shoumen.

Roads were closed in the Dobrich area, except for the road to Balchik. Most schools in Dobrich were closed for the day on January 27.

The Road Infrastructure Agency said on the morning of January 27 that the road between the town of Shoumen and the Black Sea city of Varna was closed. There were strong winds in Varna.

Roads in the Byala and Obzor areas on the route between Varna and Bourgas were closed.

In the areas worst-hit by snow, snowfalls were expected to end between 5pm and 7.30pm, making clearing-up operations easier.

Electricity distribution company CEZ told bTV said 22 settlements, all in the mountains, were without power. Road access was difficult but local authorities had promised that these roads would be opened by the end of the day to enable power restoration to go ahead, the company said.

Schools were closed in Gabrovo and Varna, bTV said.

Sofia Echo

Photo: Reuters

The world’s housing markets were on balance weaker during the year ending in the second quarter of 2011, according to the research house the Global Property Guide.

Housing markets were particularly weak in Europe and the United States, the research said.

Few European countries’ markets rose, most fell, and many worse-hit countries such as Ireland, Greece and Spain performed even worse this year than last year. The US figures were also disappointing, because of high unemployment.

Globally, more housing markets experienced price falls than rises. Only 13 out of 39 countries which have so far released data for the period saw house price increases during the year to end Q2 2011. Out of 26 countries with house price falls, 18 saw accelerated rates of decline.

The Global Property Guide said in a media statement that its statistical presentation uses price changes after inflation, “giving a more realistic picture than the more upbeat nominal figures usually preferred by real estate agents”.

Asia

Housing markets in some parts of Asia remain strong, despite government measures to cool price-rises, the statement said.

Hong Kong had the highest increase among all countries surveyed by the Global Property Guide, despite cooling measures implemented by the government. House prices were up 19.76 per cent over the year to end Q2 2011, after inflation, with a quarterly rise of 3.51 per cent.

The underlying dynamic has been Hong Kong’s very strong economic growth, with GDP up 5.1 per cent over a year earlier, and very low interest rates resulting from the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar.

In Thailand, single-detached houses rose impressively by 7.75 per cent during the year to Q2 2011, after inflation, after last year’s fall of 4.83 per cent.

Thai house prices skyrocketed by 18.29 per cent during the second quarter.

“This rise probably resulted from the zero interest loan scheme launched by the Government Housing Bank (GHB), aimed at increasing home ownership among lower and middle class earners. However, it should be noted that the Thai house price database is dated and unrepresentative,” the statement said.

In Taiwan and Singapore, government curbs seem to have been effective, the study found.

House prices in Taiwan rose by only 6.43 per cent over the past 12 months, after a rise of 11.51 per cent the previous year. In Singapore, house prices rose by 5.27 per cent (after a massive rise of 34 per cent the previous year).

House prices in Japan (Tokyo) and China (Shanghai) are both weakening (falling by 0.52 per cent and 4.84 per cent year-on-year, respectively).

Americas

US house prices fell 9.05 per cent after inflation, a 5.93 per cent decline in nominal terms, in the second quarter from a year earlier, the largest decline since 2009, according to the Federal Finance Housing Agency (FHFA).

During the quarter, house prices dropped 2.33 per cent after inflation (a fall of 0.63 per cent in nominal terms).

US home values were pushed down by foreclosures, despite the lowest mortgage interest rates for more than half a century. The homes for sale inventory averaged 3.7 million during the second quarter, the highest since Q3 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The key factor driving US foreclosures is the continued high unemployment rate. During the second quarter, unemployment in the US stood at 9.1 per cent.

Latin America’s housing markets seem vibrant, but the data is weak, the statement said.

In only a few Latin American countries are house-price statistics published. Brazil had the second largest reported house price rises in the world year-on-year to end Q2 2011. House prices in Brazil have enjoyed double-digit growth over the past two years, according to the FIPE-ZAP price index.

In Sao Paulo, advertised property prices rose by 19.50 per cent during the year to Q2 2011, with a rise of 5.17 per cent during the second quarter of 2011. Factors boosting Brazil’s real estate market include rapidly growing incomes and purchasing power, political and economic stability, an emerging middle class, and a growing population and availability of credit.

“We would expect other countries where reporting institutions have not yet published their house price data (Argentina and Colombia) to reflect this upward trend when their Q2 figures appear. We also believe house prices have risen in other fast-growing Latin American countries (Peru), where (in contrast) no house price statistics exist,” the statement said.

Photo: Nikolai Doichinov

In Europe

Prices of houses in Europe generally fell lower during the year to the second quarter of 2011. In fact, most European countries experienced faster rates of decline than last year.

The data can be grouped into several categories: a) faster declines this year than last, b) recoveries last year which have turned into declines, c) continued declines, but not as severe as last year, and d) actual recoveries (a small category).

Several European countries which saw house price falls last year performed even worse this year.

Ireland had the worst house price decline among all reporting countries in the survey over the twelve months to Q2 2011. House prices were down by 14.84 per cent year-on-year, an even worse decline than the 11.83 per cent fall the previous year.

European countries which experienced weaker performances than the previous year include Netherlands (-4.07 per cent), Slovak Republic (-6.49 per cent),Croatia (-6.55 per cent), Spain (-8.43 per cent) and Athens, Greece (-9.88 per cent) (all figures inflation-adjusted).

Some European countries which recovered last year, sunk back this year

In Latvia, standard type apartments in Riga fell by 5.4 per cent year-on-year, after a solid comeback since Q2 2010. Quarter-on-quarter, apartment prices were down by 3.8 per cent.

In the United Kingdom, average house prices were down by 5.33 per cent year-on-year, after rising 6.04 per cent the previous year. The housing market began rebounding as early as Q4 2009, but started falling again in the last quarter of 2010.

“The price-falls in the UK are interesting, because UK interest rates have been low and sterling has fallen, attracting foreign buyers,” the statement said.

In Sweden, house prices slid by 1.35 per cent over the year to end Q2 2011, probably due to the 85 per cent mortgage ceiling introduced last year.

In Portugal, house prices have been falling since Q3 2010, and during the year to Q2 2011, prices dropped by 5.67 per cent.

In Germany, apartment prices have been slowing since the first quarter of 2011. During the full year to Q2 2011, prices dipped by 0.65 per cent.

In Finland, house prices rose, but were up a mere 0.18 per cent year-on-year, down from 10.24 per cent growth over the same period last year.

Other European countries which saw price falls last year, have continued to perform poorly this year, but in their case the rate of decline has decelerated.

In Lithuania, apartment prices were down 4.29 per cent over the year to end Q2 2011, a significant improvement than last year’s fall of 15.7 per cent.

In Ukraine, apartment prices in Kyiv were down 8.44 per cent (in nominal terms) over the past 12 months, after plummeting by 17.15 per cent the previous year.

In Russia, prices in the secondary housing market were down 5.25 per cent in the year to Q2 2011, after dropping by 8.06 per cent the previous year.

In Turkey, house prices were down by 1.55 per cent from a year earlier, after last year’s fall of 3.53 per cent.

A few European countries have seen their housing markets recover, the statement said.

Norway led the small group of European countries which experienced house price increases, up by 5.93 per cent over the year to end Q2 2011. Norway’s housing market began to rebound in Q3 2009 and hasnot slowed, driven by low interest rates and strong economic growth (4.8 per cent over a year earlier).

Housing markets in Estonia (Tallinn), France and Iceland rose during the year to end Q2 2011 after suffering house price falls in the previous year. In Tallinn, house prices were up 4.94 per cent year-on-year, after last year’s fall of 0.66 per cent. In France (data is from FNAIM), prices of existing dwellings rose 4.65 per cent year-on-year, after a fall of 1.71 per cent the previous year. In Iceland, house prices rose slightly by 0.60 per cent year-on-year, after plunging by 9.04 per cent during the previous year.

After a decade-long decline during the 1990s, the housing market in Switzerland has been stable since 2000. During the year to Q2 2011, apartment prices rose by 2.19 per cent year-on-year, up from 0.92 per cent the previous year.

Bulgaria

For Bulgaria, the survey found that in terms of house price changes – inflation-adjusted – the year-on-year Q2 2011 result was -10.65 per cent, against -11.16 per cent in Q2 2010. The quarter-on-quarter result for Q2 2011 was -2.27 per cent. In nominal terms, the house price change in Bulgaria for Q2 2011 was -6.41 per cent, against -9.65 per cent in Q2 2010.
The quarter-on-quarter result for Q2 2011, in nominal terms, was -1.59 per cent.

In July, according to Raiffeisen Real Estate, prices of residential property in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia dropped by 10.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the same period of the previous year.

On a quarterly basis, however, housing prices in Sofia increased by 3.6 per cent.

In Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, prices of residential properties sold in April-June declined by 2.6 per cent on the year, but edged up 0.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

In the Black Sea city of Varna, the country’s third-largest, the average housing prices fell by 6.9 per cent against the same period of 2010 and by 1.5 per cent in quarterly terms.

Also in July, the National Statistical Institute said that Bulgaria’s residential property prices declined by 6.4 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2011.

In quarterly terms, housing prices decreased by 1.6 per cent in Q2 2011.

Twenty-three regional cities registered quarterly drops in prices, with Veliko Turnovo recording the most significant decline of 5.5 per cent, followed by Gabrovo with 5.4 per cent and Vidin and Plovdiv with 4.7 per cent each.

In Israel

According to the Global Property Guide, Israeli house prices were up 5.4 per cent year-on-year to Q2 2011, but the pace is slowing due to the steps taken by Bank of Israel. These include interest rate hikes (currently 3.25 per cent) and the new limit on prime interest based mortgages (33 per cent of the property’s value).

During the second quarter, Israeli house prices fell by 3.38 per cent, the steepest decline since the last quarter of 2008. Furthermore, the continued increase in the number of building starts, and steps taken by the finance ministry in real estate taxation, are expected to be reflected in house prices in the course of the coming year.

“House prices are still over-stretched in many countries, and developed world economies are still weak, so price-falls were to be expected,” says Matthew Montagu-Pollock, publisher of the Global Property Guide.

“Low interest rates will be positive for housing, but only if the underlying economies recover. And recovery will ultimately bring a sting in the tail, because higher inflation would eventually bring higher nominal interest rates, choking strong upward house price movements,” Montagu-Pollock said.

Sofia Echo

Photo: Tsvetelina Belutova

In Bulgarian politics, conventional wisdom is that if you want to know how many ethnic Turks live in Bulgaria, look at the most recent election results to see how many votes Ahmed Dogan’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms got.

Well, here’s a comparison. According to the results of Bulgaria’s 2011 census, there are 585 024 people in Bulgaria who described themselves as being of Turkish ethnicity. A comparison: Dogan’s party got 610 521 votes in the July 2009 parliamentary elections, according to official records.

Assuming a direct correlation between Turkish ethnicity and voting for the MRF, and even allowing for the fact that some people counted in the census must have been below voting age, that does show a difference of about 25 500, give or take a vote or two. That may suggest that the MRF is able to reach beyond its traditional constituency. Oh, and any of Dogan’s detractors by now would be mumbling slanderously about vote-buying, no doubt.

But let’s move on, because you started reading this because the headline suggested this story would be about the number of foreigners living in Bulgaria, and who cares about the arcane practices of Bulgarian politics. In fact, that MRF story was there to show that the tale told by Census 2011 is one that requires a touch of interpretation, a dab of guesswork and probably too, a pocket calculator.

It also requires you to be able to understand Bulgarian, the only language in which the results were posted on the website of the National Statistics Institute. But then again, the language of Bulgaria is Bulgarian, officially, and by the way, of this country’s population of 7 364 570 people, about 5.6 million gave Bulgarian as their mother tongue.

Photo: Georgi Kozhouharov

Minor arcana

Which means that about 1.7 million people in Bulgaria do not use Bulgarian as their mother tongue.

So how many speak English? I hear you cry. Wait a bit, I’ve been too busy reading small-print spreadsheets and tapping on a calculator to give that away just yet.

Of the non-Bulgarian speakers, the mother-tongue list is:
Turkish 604 246 (sorry to harp on this, but that means more people speak Turkish than declare themselves to be ethnic Turks, but we shall get back to that);
Romani 280 979;
Armenian 5567;
Hebrew 141;
Vlach 1815;
Russian 15 211;
Tatar 1367;
Arabic 1321;
Greek 3182;
Macedonian 1376;
Romanian 5454; and
Wait for it… “Other” 9946.

Major arcana

That was, I hope, an interesting digression, but really may only indicate the mother tongue of people holding Bulgarian passports, even though foreigners were counted in this year’s census.

To try to get to the number of English-speakers, it is necessary to go to the table of details about foreigners who were in Bulgaria at that golden point in February 2011. Remember that figures for nationalities do not count in diplomats, who by law were excluded from being tallied in the census.

There are, for the record, 36 723 foreigners in Bulgaria, or at least there were in February 2011. Of these, by the by, 16 292 are men and 20 431 women.

From European Union member states, there were 8444, with the United Kingdom making up the biggest share of the EU group, at 2605 (1504 men and 1101 women).

Greece follows at 1253 (914 men and 339 women), Germany at 848 (515 men and 333 women), Poland at 819 (274 men and 545 women), Italy at 456 (376 men and 80 women) and the Czech Republic at 372 (128 men, 244 women). As a matter of interest, 26th on the list was Luxembourg, at four (all men).

Of non-EU Europe, unsurprisingly perhaps, Russia is top of the list, at 11 991 (this time, women far outnumber men – 2518 men and 9473 women; if anyone knows why this is so, please write and tell me).

Further in this category, there are Ukraine (3064), Macedonia (1091), Moldova (893) and Serbia (569); like the EU states, others straggle along to make up a total of foreign residents from non-EU Europe of 18 413.

From Africa, there were 429 people at the time of the census. Egypt topped the list, at 62, followed by Algeria, 59, and Nigeria, 50. These figures make the number of my South African compatriots quite respectable; it seems I am one of 37, and we are close to evenly split between men and women, politically-correct lot that we are.

From Asia, Turkey had 2741 (2221 men, 520 women) – so presumably we can add that figure to the number of ethnic Turks to bump up the number of Turkish-speakers – followed by Armenia (1167), China (749), Syria (729), Iraq (506) and Vietnam (173). For those who track Turkey’s EU bid, please note that the census classified Turkey as an Asian country.

Говорите ли Aнглийски?

Clearly, the only way to try to establish the number of English-speakers is to add up the number of people recorded as having been from countries either officially English-speaking, effectively so or where English is in common usage or, to jazz this up a little, where they reasonably may be expected to speak English; and no rude chauvinistic comments please, about each other’s forms of English (The Sofia Echo lives in a world where “the colour of the pavement is grey” rather than the “color of the sidewalk is gray” but that’s just our choice).

So, we have, as noted, 2605 people from the UK. Add the United States (524), Canada (64), Ireland (78), India (123), South Africa (37), Australia (34), New Zealand (11), Nigeria (50), Malta (eight) and round up a bit for a few people from other former colonial spots, throw in a guesstimate of people from countries likely to have a least a rudimentary-to-working knowledge of English, and you get something like 3500 to 4000 people, and even that higher figure may be conservative. Remember that under “mother tongue” the total in the “Other” category was 9946.

To complicate matters, under the category “did not declare” is the figure 47 458. But then again, while not putting on the spreadsheet a separate category for the English language, there also was not one for German, Italian, Spanish or French.

And finally, of course, there seems to be no official figure anywhere for the number of people, Bulgarians or foreigners in Bulgaria, who have English as a second language. That would require, presumably, a stout pair of shoes, a clipboard, paper, a pencil, time and funding. And no doubt, someone would ask why it was worth knowing at all.

Population count

The population of Bulgaria as of February 2011 is 7 364 570 people, of whom a third live in the country’s three biggest cities, Sofia, Varna and Plovdiv, according to the official results of this year’s census.

The results were announced at a news conference on July 21 2011

Ethnic Bulgarians make up 84.8 per cent (5 664 624 people), ethnic Turkish Bulgarians 8.8 per cent (588 318 people) and Roma 4.9 per cent (325 343 people), according to the census.

Of the overall population, 51.3 per cent are women and 48.7 per cent men.

About 72.5 per cent of the population live in cities. Sofia, which along with Varna has seen a population increase since the 2001 census, has 1 291 591 residents.

Sofia has seen a population increase of 10.3 per cent and Varna 2.8 per cent. The districts of Veliko Turnovo and Bourgas also have seen increases in population.

The biggest decreases in population have been in Lovetch (17.1 per cent), Vidin (16.2 per cent), Silistra (15.1 per cent) Razgrad (13 per cent) and Pleven (12.2 per cent).

Bourgas is the fourth-largest district, with 415 817 people, followed by Stara Zagora (333 265) and Blagoevgrad (232 552).

Census officials said that there were 255 cities and towns, together home to 5 339 001 people (72.5 per cent) and 50 047 villages, together with 2 025 569 residents (27.5 per cent) while in 181 settlements, the census recorded no people.

Twenty-one per cent of settlements had up to 50 residents and 36 per cent had between 100 and 500.

From people’s declarations of their religious affiliations, census officials concluded that Orthodox Christians made up 76 per cent of the population, Muslims 10 per cent. Protestants 1.1 per cent and Roman Catholics 0.8 per cent.

Sofia Echo

Qatar Airways will offer flights from Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia to Qatar’s capital Doha as part of its European expansion, the company said on August 16.

The airline will service the destination four times a week, starting from September 14, with a stop-over in Bucharest. The company started flights to Romania’s capital Bucharest in January.

Qatar Airlines has already started selling tickets for the destination.

As part of its aggressive entry into Europe, the airline has already started flights to Brussels, Stuttgart, Budapest, Venice. The company will also start flights to Oslo in October.

Currently, the air carrier services more than 100 routes in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, North and South America.

By 2013, the airline plans to offer direct flights to more than 120 destinations globally and to have a fleet of more than 120 aircraft.

Photo: Nadezhda Chipeva

A new Bulgarian speed train is going to reach the Black Sea coast from Sofia in about 3.5 hours, Tomislav Donchev, European affairs minister said while on a visit to Pernik, Bulgarian media reported on June 24 2011.

This is the largest railway project – currently under negotiation – due to receive European funding. The modern infrastructure will allow trains to reach Bourgas from Sofia in 3.5 hours, reaching speeds of about 160km/h, the report said.

According to Donchev, the “negotiations for the funding of railroad projects and infrastructure are going very well,” Dnevnik reported.

Bulgaria’s national railway carrier BDZ is yet to obtain the 140 million leva loan from the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB), which was expected to support it with funds until the extension of a larger credit facility from the World Bank, the company’s chief executive Pencho Popov said earlier this month.

BDZ’s total liabilities amount to more than 500 million leva.

BDZ owes 4.5 million leva to oil company Lukoil for diesel fuel purchases. The carrier has been given an extension to pay its debts by the end of the June but if it fails to settle the debt, Lukoil may decide to suspend fuel deliveries to the company. BDZ owes about nine million leva to local company Transimpex for locomotive repairs, media reports said.

Sofia Echo

500,000 £8 FLIGHTS

Ryanair, the world’s favourite airline, today (4 August) announced that it will open a new twice-weekly service from London Stansted to Plovdiv in Bulgaria which will commence on 2 November with fares from £32.99 one way inclusive of taxes.

Ryanair celebrated this new routes by releasing 500,000 £8 seats for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in September. These “all in” low fares will be available on over 500 of Ryanair’s European routes but must be booked on www.ryanair.com before midnight on Thursday, 5 Aug.

Ryanair’s Laura McCormack said:

“Ryanair is delighted to announce our first Bulgarian route from London Stansted to Plovdiv. This new service will operate twice-weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays with fares from only £32.99 one way inclusive of taxes which will go on sale tomorrow on www.ryanair.com. Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second largest city with a rich and varied history dating back 8000 years. Plovdiv makes a great city break destination and is also within easy access of the ski resorts of Bansko and

Only Ryanair sells Europe’s lowest fares with a no fuel surcharge guarantee. In addition to our lowest fares we also deliver Europe’s No1 on-time performance across over 1,100 routes. Passengers can book our £8 seats for travel on over 500 European destinations in September. These seats can only be booked until midnight on Thursday (5 August) and are sure to be snapped up fast so we urge passengers to book them on www.ryanair.com before they sell out. Fares to Plovdiv start from £32.99 one way inclusive of taxes.”