November 19 (SeeNews) - Following are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday morning. SeeNews has not verified these reports and cannot vouch for their accuracy.
DNEVNIK
- A total of 127 million euro in pre-accession aid payments under EU's Phare programme have been "rescued", the daily reported after the European Commission said on Wednesday it was unblocking some of the tied-up funding. However, a total of 389 million euro from the 543 million euro in Phare funding frozen by the EC in 2008 have been irreversibly lost, the daily said. Brussels will unfreeze immediately 64 million euro with hopes that a further 27 million euro will be provided in 2010, Bulgarian Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov said.
STANDART
- Listings have began to appear for Sofia residential properties priced at 400 euro per square metre, a price level considered unreachable up until recently, data from real estate portal imoti.net showed.
PARI
- Some three percent of Bulgarians' savings were parked in mutual funds in 2007 but that share fell to 1.0% by mid-2009. Therefore it is realistic to expect that in 2010/2011 mutual fund assets will triple, rebounding to their 2007 levels, Pioneer Investment manager Yavor Achev said in an interview for the newspaper.
- The Bulgarian Economy Ministry will not give the go-ahead to national power grid operator NEK and state owned gas monopoly Bulgargaz to convert their receivables from insolvent steel mill Kremikovtzi into equity, Economy Minister Traycho Traykov said.
- The volume of investment in Bulgaria's industrial sector will fall 11.2% in 2010 while the private sector will post a drop of 22.7%, a business survey carried out by the National Statistics Institute in late October showed.
($=0.6727 euro)