May 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian leasing companies' claims under financial and operational leases increased to 5.48 billion levs ($3.04 billion/2.8 billion euro) at the end of March from 4.67 billion levs at the same time last year, the central bank said on Monday.
Compared to the end of 2022, the overall amount of claims was 3.6% higher at the end of March and represented 3.1% of the GDP forecast for 2023, Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said in a statement.
In March last year, the claims were equivalent to 2.8% of the GDP for 2022.
Financial lease claims totalled some 5.13 billion levs at the end of the third month of the current year, having increased by 15.3% on the year and by 3.8% since end-December.
Operational lease claims jumped by 59.7%year-on-year to 357 million levs at the end of March, but were only 0.3% higher compared to the end of 2022.
The assets of the companies operating in Bulgaria's leasing sector stood at 6.65 billion levs at the end of the review month, up from 5.61 billion levs a year earlier.
There were a total of 47 active leasing companies at the end of March, one more than a year ago.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)