The company, whose portfolio includes real estate offers in 20 countries, has released data saying that in the third quarter of 2009 25% of all inquiries it received were for properties in Bulgaria, Interfax reported.

This ranks Bulgaria first as an investment destination for Russian buyers, followed by Turkey with 17% and Spain with 13%.

What is more, the company says all of its Russian clients who considered buying real estate property in Bulgaria actually bought it.

MIEL’ DPM explains that Bulgaria is attracting buyers with the affordable prices, the decent quality of real estate, the variety of offers, and the simplified purchase procedure.

70% of those Russians looking for property in Spain have also managed to find what they want which places Spain second after Bulgaria on that criteria.

Kudrin, who participates in the annual meeting of the IMF and the World bank stated that Russia is considering crediting Bulgaria with 3,8 million EUR for the construction of the nuclear power plant “Belene”.

The crediting could take place only if Russian companies participate in the construction of the Bulgarian nuclear power plant, states Rosblat.

At the moment, Russia is interested in the economy reasoning behind the construction of the nuclear power plant and in the crediting conditions if Russian companies are involved in the construction.

“Bulgaria never wanted a loan from Russia to construct the power plant Belene,” timely counters the Bulgarian minister of economy, energy and tourism Traicho Traikov.

This hints at Russian pressure for their involvement in the nuclear power plant “Belene”.

“We’re committed to our investment intentions and won’t withdraw from our strategic goal to be a significant presence in the radio and TV services market in Bulgaria,” said Michael Wagenhofer – chief executive of ORS.

The company is currently broadening their activities in Central and Eastern Europe and by the end of 2008, they started their transition from analog to digital television broadcast in Bulgaria.

ORS also expressed their interest in purchasing the National department “Radio and TV stations” (NURTS), and currently trying to get the rights to broadcast digital television according to the First stage of the plan for digitalization of Bulgaria.

BTK Group and ORS signed a preliminary contract for the purchase of NURTS, which expired on June 2nd 2009. The negotiations with NURTS are still underway and to this date, ORS haven’t decided to either purchase or withdraw from the deal.

The board of ORF, the Austrian public TV provider, demanded additional data before coming out with an announcement on the investment plans of ORS for Bulgaria. The delay is mostly due to internal issues in Austria itself. The board of ORF should make their final decisions by November 2009. ORF are majority owners of ORS with 60% of the shares. The other shareholder is Medicur Sendeanlagen – part of the Reiffeisen Group.

A little over seven months were necessary for the completion of the “rough construction” stage of the trade center. More than 85% of the whole construction is expected to be finished by the end of January 2010. The completion of the building is planned for April 2010.

The entire construction ground, including two underground and three overground levels, is 48 000 square meters. The company Aladin EOOD is the investor in Mall Pleven.

The main executive of the project is the construction company “Sofstroy” AD. During the majority of the first stage of the project, 200 people were busy working on the building.

This was announced by the minister Totiu Mladenov, who added that 250 million leva will be provided from the operative program “Development of human resources”, 200 million leva will be provided in the form of active labor market measures and another 200 million will be in the form of passive measures (compensations).

The other 400 million will remain in the business due to the reduction of the insurance payments by 2% from January 1st. The priorities of the Ministry of labor and social politics in 2010 will be to develop new politics regarding qualification. The first meeting on this issue will take place tomorrow.

Minister Mladenov cited data from the World bank, according to which 25% of the people between 15 and 24 years in Bulgaria are “neither studying nor working, and don’t have any intent to change that.” To aid the young people in Bulgaria, the ministry will introduce several short term measures.

One of them is the extension of the compensation period by 3 months, but only for people that involve themselves with re-qualification training. This measure is intended to protect young people up to 29 years. 11,5 million leva will be provided from the budget, and more than 25 thousand people will take advantage of this measure.

This was stated by Teodora Dimitrova, manager of the Bulgarian and Romanian branch of the European network for real estate companies ERA, in an interview.

“The demand is mostly dictated by foreigners looking for profitable investments or people that would have never thought of purchasing an estate if it wasn’t for the crisis. Studio apartments for 20 000 EUR weren’t possible until recently,” explains Dimitrova.

Foreign buyers have lessened in number just like in all real estate markets across Europe. Most of the foreign buyers at the moment are Russians, with concentrated interest on the Black Sea coast. The deals made there are within the 100 000 EUR limit.

There are a few deals for more expensive estates, but the mass client doesn’t pay higher than these levels. It can’t be said however, that the best estates are massively sold under their actual price. Such deals are a rarity and very individual – it depends on how quickly does the owner need to sell his estate.

“At the moment the buyers are few and if you hope to sell in a shorter term, that has to reflect on the price. Buyers can reach very profitable deals, but this isn’t a massive trend and the buyers shouldn’t rely on underpricing,” concludes Teodora Dimitrova.

Mostly, these buyers aim for underpriced estates. The average prices that customers agree to don’t go over 50 000 EUR.

Our analysis for Sofia in particular shows that 70% of the deals of our cash clients are within the 30 000 – 40 000 EUR price range, says Dimitrova.

According to her, people are currently very cautious and don’t take risks with bank loans if they are not sure in their long-term income. Banks have also tightened their requirements for clients that want a loan.

Traditionally, autumn is the most active season for real estate deals. As far as the internal market of real estates is concerned, the months October and November are the usual time to purchase resort estates and the like.

On the same day, the company will add a third plane to the first two servicing the Sofia airport.

The new destinations of Wizz Air are: Madrid, Paris Beauvais, Frankfurt-Hahn and Bologna Forli. There will be three flights to each of them every week.

The initial price of tickets in one direction will be 34 leva. Varadi clarified that in order to use the lowest prices, the customer must purchase the ticket 3-4 weeks before the flight itself.

Despite the agreement, the Bulgarian side still wants additional verification on the financial expenses until the final decision is made.

The Russian minister of energy Sergei Shmatko expressed his satisfaction from the decision of the Bulgarian government to continue their co-operation on the major energy projects.

“We discussed if the projects should be completed, how to reach maximum efficiency and mutual benefits”, said Shmatko after his meeting with his Bulgarian colleague Traicho Traikov and the prime minister Boiko Borisov.

During the discussion, Shmatko assured the Bulgarian side that Russia is open to pragmatic dialogue on all three energy projects.

“I’m happy that Russia understands our concern about the energy projects, especially about the oil pipeline “Burgas – Alexandroupolis”. They tolerate our demands for detailed information on the stages of the project and it’s financing,” said the Bulgarian prime minister Borisov in front of the media last night.

Along with the minister of economics, energy and tourism Traicho Traikov and his Russian colleague Sergei Shmatko, he informed the media about the results of the two-way discussions on the energy projects.

According to him the main conclusion from the meetings is that the two projects – “Nabuko” and “South stream” aren’t competing among themselves, and on the contrary – Bulgaria is participating equally in both.

Some concrete measures have to be taken to reach the maximum efficiency of “South stream”.

Minister Traikov announced that both sides will form work groups. One will work on the contract for the project, while the other will work on the pre-project research auction.