November 24 (SeeNews) - Following are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Tuesday morning. SeeNews has not verified these reports and cannot vouch for their accuracy.
DNEVNIK
- The share of Bulgarians with pessimistic expectations about their household's financial position has decreased to 43.1% in October from 58.1% in March with the share of those that expect their financial fortunes to improve rising to 16.4% from 11.7%, according to a survey issued by the Sofia-based non-profit Open Society Institute. As many as 14.1% of the 1,200 people that participated in the poll said they were unemployed in October, up from 8.3% in October 2008, while official statistics showed the country's jobless rate at 8.23% last month.
- Bulgaria's Tourism Agency, currently facing liquidation as part of the government's administrative reform, has tendered a contract worth 6.4 million levs, ex VAT, for an ad campaign in Germany, the UK and Russia promoting the country's tourism industry, data of the public procurement registry showed.
- There is a wide-spread practice of renting out or concessioning off Black Sea beaches under arrangements that do a disservice to the state's interests, the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor's office said after conducting a comprehensive check.
STANDART
- Tourism companies and hotel operators have decided to team up for the launch of a bank that will support the tourism sector by providing access to loan-financing at costs lower than the offerings of commercial banks in the country, Blagoi Ragin, the head of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association, said. The new lender, which will require a start-up capital of 10 million levs, will buy out the sector's bad loans and will extend credits at an interest rate that is 2.0% lower than current market rates.
PARI
- Bulgarian lender Cibank, part of Belgium's KBC group, has received a 25 million euro credit line from the European Investment Bank in support of municipalities as well as manufacturing and trade companies, Cibank's executive director Petar Andronov said.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)