November 3 (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.
PARI
- Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Bulgaria will halve in 2009 compared to 2008, when foreign investment reached 6.5 billion euro, the newspaper reported, quoting analyst forecasts and central bank data. FDI totalled 1.95 billion euro or 5.8% of the projected GDPat the end of August, down 2.28 billion euro from a year earlier.
- The Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) forecast that recession in Bulgaria will peak in March 2010, the daily reported. BIA does not expect a fast recovery, pointing at the lack of increase in the number of industrial orders in Bulgaria despite positive data from western Europe. BIA sees the two percent economic downturn projected by the government as too optimistic.
- Unemployment in Bulgaria will peak at 9.5% in March 2010, the co-chairman of local NGO Centre for Economic Development (CED) Georgi Prohaski said. According to CED, the Bulgarian economy will start to grow in the second or the third quarter of 2010.
- Spanish construction company FCC, which is building a bridge over the Danube river linking Bulgaria and Romania, will not be granted the additional 60 million euro ($89 million) the company demanded from the Bulgarian government, deputy Transport Minister Ivailo Moskovski said after a meeting with the Spanish ambassador in Sofia Jorge Fuentes. FCC won the tender for the construction of the bridge with a 90 million euro bid but experts have warned the actual cost will be about 160 million euro.
DNEVNIK
- The bad loans in the Bulgarian banking system exceeded 1.84 billion levs at the end of September, or 3.55% of local banks' credit portfolio, central bank data showed. Compared to the second quarter, non-performing loans (those with repayment overdue for more than 180 days) increased by 517.8 million levs.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)