The Bulgarian government plans to increase product fees, a charge imposed to raise revenue for product/packaging recycling, reuse and/or safe disposal, in a move that will add to the retail price of packaged goods.

The drafted changes to the product fee decree and the ordinance on packaging and packaging waste should be adopted by the end of April, said deputy environment minister Chavdar Georgiev, declining to specify the margin by which the fee will be increased. The official said it is adjusted for the annual inflation. The fee will be inflation-adjusted annually through 2011.

The official headline inflation for 2007 was reported at 12.5%.

The new rules will require that the business recover and recycle new types of packaging materials like textile, porcelain and timber. They will be added to the waste paper, plastic, glass and metal packaging that is collected at present.

The domestic licensed packaging recovery organisations declined to comment.

The deadline by which the environment minister should approve or reject their reports on the waste packaging recovered in 2007 expires in late April.

Two years ago, environment minister Cevdet Chakarov refused to rubber-stamp the data of the organisations. The negotiations that followed produced a memorandum that obliged the organisations to invest in containers for separate collection and for sorting installations. The investment target figures in the memorandum are negotiated on an annual basis. The talks on this year's figures are upcoming.

In an official statement to the economy ministry, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria said that 'such an increase in product fees would have a negative impact on the business climate in the country and will lead to higher end-prices for staple consumer goods.'

According to the confederation, the proposed increase is ungrounded because the ongoing development of the separate waste collection systems is improving their profitability.

The proposed requirement that the companies factor the product fee into the retail price is unacceptable because the state has no mandate to be imposing a pricing mechanism, said Evgenii Ivanov, chief secretary of the confederation.

The confederation is also unhappy with the proposal to authorise the environment minister to double-check the audited reports on the annual targets for the recovery of waste packaging.

The organisation argues that this would allow the environment minister to disregard the findings of the auditor thus rendering pointless the auditing of the reports in the first place while allowing a substantial margin for personal bias.(Dnevnik)

Indian international professional services firm Sutherland is looking for 5,000 sq m of office space to house a company outpost in Bulgarian city Ruse, on the Danube, it emerged after a meeting between Sutherland executives and representatives of the local government.

The municipality will shortlist the available properties and present them at a follow-up meeting with executives from the Indian company which plans to create 200 jobs here.

The choice of Ruse was based on Sutherland research which ranked Bulgaria as Europe's top investment destination and 9th globally. The company research also found that Bulgaria ranks 5th in the world in terms of highly-skilled IT professionals.

The findings have prompted plans for the investment on the part of Sutherland of $19 mln in Bulgaria with new jobs seen at over 1,000.

The Indian company will soon open an office in Bulgarian capital Sofia where it plans top have a staff of 200.(Dnevnik)

Local real estate investment trust Agricultural Land Opportunity Fund Mel Invest said it expects to buy 8,000 ha of arable land at an average cost of 2,500 levs/ha in 2008, indicates the prospectus for the upcoming capital raise of the company submitted to the Sofia stock exchange.

In late 2007, the REIT had land bank of 3,700 ha, mainly in the Varna, Burgas, Sliven, Yambol, Pleven, Vidin and Silistra areas. The average acquisition cost was 2,227.1 levs/ha.

The REIT plans to double its capital to 28 mln levs. The rights from the capital increase will trade March 27-April 9.

The minimum subscription target is 2 mln out of 14.044 mln shares with an issue price of 1.10 levs.(Dnevnik)

Medica, the local producer of medical dressing materials, said consolidated profit more than tripled year-on-year to 1.4 mln levs in 2007 with revenues up 10% to 13.95 mln levs.

Dressing materials generated 67% of operating income last year with the remainder coming from the sales of pharmaceutical products.

The company exports 40% of its output to the Ukraine and another 18% to Serbia. Smaller volumes are shipped to Belarus, Greece, Romania, Italy and Macedonia.

2008 sales are seen up 11% to around 15 mln levs with profit expected to come in at 1.8 mln levs.

The company has set aside 4 mln levs for the purchase of new production equipment for dressings and medicines, for the construction of a warehouse, for the marketing of new products and for the acquisition of dossiers for generic medicines.(Dnevnik)

Bulgaria will pick over the next 2-3 months a consultant to draw up the terms of reference for the selection of an investor for a new 600MW capacity in the Maritsa Iztok coal basin, Southern Bulgaria, said Ivan Markov, executive director of the Maritsa Iztok mining company.

The mining company will most likely be in charge of the procedure while interdepartmental working group will get the task of grading the candidates which will be required to have substantial expertise in the structuring of similar projects, said Markov.

A site for the new power generation capacity is yet to be chosen.

In late 2007, a working group proposed to the government to approve a two-stage investor selection process.

The procedure will be open to vendors with a highly efficient and environmentally sound technology for the burning of lignite coal. They will sign a long-term supply contract with the Maritsa Iztok mines.

The eligibility requirements call for entries from corporations with 750 mln euro turnover in the last five years and 1,000MW of installed capacity or output over the same period.

According to deputy energy minister Galina Tosheva, the investor selection process could get underway before the end of 2008.

The apparent no-haste approach to the project on the part of the energy ministry is attributed by experts to the spotlight on the Belene nuclear power plant.

Czech CEZ, Germany’s RWE and E.ON, Italy's Enel, AES of the U.S. and Bulgarian power producer Brikel have publicly indicated interest in the construction of a new power generation facility.(Dnevnik)

The Karlovo municipality is sidetracking a project to turn the city of Bania into a golfing destination with demands that local businessman Hristo Kovachki clarify the volume and origin of the private investment.

The municipality and the Kovachki-backed Bania Golf and Spa Resort have set up a joint venture, Sporten Complex, with the local government contributing 12 ha of land and the private investor committing 15 mln levs in company capital and 60 mln euro to the construction of a golf and villa community in Bania.

In compliance with anti-money laundering regulations, the municipality is obliged to inform the Financial Intelligence Bureau of the size of the cash capital, said municipal councilor Toshko Stoev.

Karlovo mayor Naiden Naidenov said he was considering returning to the councilors for a further review the decision to greenlight the project.

Another group of municipal councilors have meanwhile produced a sign-in, urging that the project gets started as soon as possible because the earmarked land and the funds contributed to the capital of the joint venture are awasting.(Dnevnik)

Over the last couple of months, Bulgarian equities have retreated to levels untested in more than a year with a whole host of stocks notching up new record closes last week.

'The transfer of some large packages of shares in liquid companies shows that big investors are also starting to succumb to panic which is very bad news,' said Nikolai Vitliemov, a broker at Varchev Finance.

The blue chip SOFIX last Friday fell to a record low for the past 12 months. The index slumped to 1181.21 points just before the end of trading but managed to eke out a 1185.5 close. It has shed over 30% since the beginning of the year.

The last stock market wobble was in May 2007 but it was short-lived and was followed by several months of almost uninterrupted growth that lasted into October.

In February, many stocks regained some ground before revisiting the lows recorded in January 22 when the global stock plunge dragged down the local market.

The analysts do not see a local recovery before the international markets settle which is not expected to happen over the near-term.(Dnevnik)

The large banks are giving up ground to their smaller rivals, shows data of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB).

The A list banks (in terms of assets) were on the back foot in the past year both in terms of their share of banking assets and in terms of their position on the lending, deposit and savings markets.

The top category of banks by the end of January 2008 was made up of UniCredit Bulbank, DSK Bank, UBB, Raiffeisenbank (Bulgaria) EAD and Postbank. The rest fall into the second tier while the local branches of foreign banks are classified into the third group.

Over the past year, the lending, deposit and asset total shares of the top five banks in terms of assets shrunk roughly 17% which led to a decline in their combined market share from 2/3 to close to 50%.

Meanwhile, the second group banks added 15.5% on average to their market position. The biggest market share gain - 16.7%, was recorded on the deposit and savings market.(Dnevnik)