August 12 (SeeNews) - Following are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Wednesday morning. SeeNews has not verified these reports and cannot vouch for their accuracy.
DNEVNIK
- Bulgaria’s economy in the second quarter of 2009 is expected to have shrunk by between 5% and 7% on the year, experts said ahead of the announcement of gross domestic product (GDP) data on Monday. The country's GDP shrank by 3.5% in the first quarter of the year.
- Bulgaria’s trade gap in the first half of the year narrowed by 43.9% on the year to 4.654 billion levs, data of the statistics office showed.
- A multifunctional sport hall to be built in the capital Sofia will cost 90 million levs, which is 17 million levs less than planned, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said after meeting representatives of Glavbolgarstroy, the company that was contracted for the construction works.
- The prosecuting authorities will investigate a deal for two elevators that parliament bought for a combined 300,000 levs, parliament speaker Tsetska Tsacheva said. The elevators' real cost is 90,000 levs, she added. The prosecuting authorities will also check an 800,000-lev deal for the reconstruction of flats used by MPs.
PARI
- The average monthly salary in Bulgaria in the second quarter rose by 15.3% on the year to 588 levs, data of the National Statistics Office showed. The number of labour contracts in the second quarter fell to 2.402 million, down by 10,600 compared to the first quarter of the year.
- The Communication Regulation Commission granted a licence to the private company StarPost to perform postal services nationwide, the commission said.
- The project for a second nuclear power plant in the country, Belene, is economically feasible, Bulgarian nuclear energy lobby group Bulatom said.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)