Some 50 Sofia-based companies with unpaid hot water bills to the Toplofikacia Sofia utility will have to go dry from September 1 in the wake of a tougher stance that state-controlled gas distributor Bulgargaz is taking against utilities that have not paid for their gas supplies.

In a statement to the media, Bulgargaz said on Thursday that, starting September 1, it will start to power down gas supplies to the heating utilities in Sofia, Burgas, Vratsa and Pleven. It is owed more than 235 mln levs by the heating utilities.

In April, Bulgargaz turned the tap on gas supplies to the heating utility in Shumen.

In July, the gas supplier warned the municipal governments and the utilities that they will be facing sanctions unless they resume payments on their outstanding gas bills.

The last-ditch measure is needed because of the substantial size of unpaid bills and the depletion of Bulgargaz' financial reserves, said the company.

The Sofia heating utility alone owes Bulgargaz 116 mln levs on top of the 150 mln that were rescheduled last year.

The response of the Sofia utility was to announce it was cutting off the hot water supply of non-paying industrial customers.(Dnevnik)

Globul, the Bulgarian wireless unit of Greece's OTE, maintained its share in the highly competitive Bulgarian market thanks to solid revenue growth in Q2 2008, the parent company said on Thursday.

Globul’s service revenues increased by 11.3%, driven mostly by contract revenues (up 17.5%), supported among others by a 95% increase in data revenues following the introduction of 3G services.

Globul achieved a significant OIBDA margin improvement in the quarter despite strong growth in the contract customer base. Key cost elements contributing to this improvement have been network expenses, marketing and G&A, containing total operating expenses growth to 2.8%, shows the Q2 financial report of the parent company.

Globul continued to focus on the post-paid customer segment, adding 112k net new contract subscribers, to bring its contract customer base to 1.9 mln, or 48% of the total, said OTE. As in previous quarters, pre-paid customers registered a decline of approximately 45,000, leading to an overall customer growth of 67,000, and a base of 3.95 mln subscribers.

Globul’s blended AMOU in H1’08 was up by about 20%, reflecting a 41% increase in pre-paid AMOU following commercial initiatives to stimulate usage and the customer base rationalization. Reflecting

lower post-paid ARPU, resulting from the higher subscriber numbers in this category as well as tariff erosion, blended ARPU was down in H1 2008.(Dnevnik)

Bulgaria's three wireless telecom carriers said they all align their roaming charges to the Eurotariff introduced last year by the EU in a bid to set a maximum average per-minute charge at wholesale level and limit charges at retail level.

Under directive 717/2007 on roaming on public mobile telephone networks within the community, the price ceiling for calls made will shall decrease to 0.46 euro and 0.43 euro, and for calls received to 0.22 euro and 0.19 euro, on 30 August 2008 and on 30 August 2009 respectively.

Mobiltel, owned by Austria's telekom austria, and vivatel, the wireless unit of Bulgaria's incumbent telco BTC, will adjusted their roaming tariffs at the last moment while Globul, owned by Greece's OTE, did that in 2007.

The charge for calls made will become 1.08 levs/min while the charge on calls received will be 0.56 levs/min.

Vivatel said the pricelist was revised at the last moment because of the preceding reduction in the wholesale tariff. The company said the EU telecom policy in this area is favorable for its business.

Mobiltel and vivatel said the tariff reduction will have no adverse effect on their financial performance.(Dnevnik)

The credit rate growth that has been in evidence since last fall is set to continue, local bankers told Dnevnik.

The upward revisions will continue over the near term but without sharp movements, said Petar Andronov, chief executive director of Economic and Investment Bank. No turnaround is seen over the next couple of months, he said.

The rates on household loans continued to trend up in July in comparison with the year-ago period, shows data of the central bank.

The average rate on consumer loans is now 11.15%, up 1.79 percentage points year-on-year.

Mortgage rates have added 0.94 percentage points year-on-year to an average of 9.07%..

The Annual Percentage Rate on consumer loans has increased 1.42 percentage points on the year to 12.26%.

The APR on housing loans has inched up 1.22 percentage points year-on-year to 9.91% in July 2008.(Dnevnik)

Overregulation continues to be a bane for local businesses despite pledges b y the Bulgarian government to ease the administrative hassle.

According to a report approved Thursday by the government, a total of 133 new regulations took effect in 2007. The regulatory regimes that were dismantled that year were less than 50. The government did not give an exact number.

The number of state administration staff topped 84,000 in 2007, said the report. The document showed that 2,300 staffers were added to the government payroll in 2007 with lay-off affecting mostly small administrative structures and territorial agencies.

(Dnevnik)