LM Legal Services Blog

The deadline for re-registration of companies in Bulgaria will expire 143 days ago. In practical terms this means that all companies registered in Bulgaria prior to 2008 (when the new Commercial Register started working) will have to submit documents for re-registration. All companies failing to do so will be terminated by the State authorities and their owners will be required to cover the expenses for the proceedings.

Unlike some websites who claim that this should be done before June 2010 in fact there is enough time to complete the procedure but in any case this matter requires urgent attention from anyone who has a company in Bulgaria registered before 2008 and especially if this company owns property in Bulgaria (apartment, land, house, etc).

Should you wish to use our services for re-registration of your company in Bulgaria please do not hesitate to contact us for a quote.

With changes in the Commercial Law the minimal required share-capital to register a limited liability company in Bulgaria has been lowered to 1 Euro. The changes have been published in the State Gazette today and shall be in full force and effect as of 20 October 2009. Before the change the minimal amount required was almost 2600 Euros.

Bulgaria has a budget surplus but it can easily slide into a budget deficit of 1.5% of the GDP, according to the Italian Unicredit Group. The recession in Bulgaria is inevitable and will last 2 years, say the analysts. According to the expectations, the country’s economy will shrink by 3% in 2009 and by another 1% in 2010. It is expected that the budget will move from 3% surplus in 2008 to a 0.4% deficit in 2009 and a deficit of 1,5% in 2010.

The inflation is expected to fall to 3.5% for 2009 and to 1,8% in 2010 – which will be one of the few positive effects from the shrinking of the economy. The other positive effect will be the decrease of the current account deficit.

The most serious problem of Bulgaria is the sharp decrease of the foreign investment in the country which is expected to lead to a high unemployment exceeding 10%. It is expected that the unemployment will reach 12% in the next year.

The foreign investment will be 50% less than last year – from 16.7% to 7.5% of the GDP.

Although banks’ interest rates of savings accounts are still high, in February those of one- and three-month deposits started decreasing. At the same time the interest rates for six- and twelve-month fix term saving deposits are still increasing.

UniCredit Bulbank did not continue with their promotions and decreased the interest rate of the fourth period of their Increasing Interest scheme from 12% to 9% for the deposits in levs and from 10% to 7% for the deposits in Euros. The interest for their one year fix term deposit has dropped from 8.80% to 4.85%.

First Investment Bank did not continue their promotion Golden Deposit. The bank has launched their product March Deposit, a three month fix term deposit with interest rate, both for deposits in Euros and in levs, of 8.75% instead of 9.75% like the previous promotion.

Most other banks still keep increasing the interests of savings accounts in order to attract fresh money. Among them are: PostBank, Raiffeisenbank, Eibank, Invest Bank and Alpha Bank.

Concerning customer loans, all banks have increased their interest rates by about 1% in February, apart from Alpha Bank who decreased it by 0.7%.

Most of the mortgage rates have not increased and in the rare cases of an increase, it does not exceed 1%.

In 2008 the number of newly built properties kept  increasing, according to the new information released by the National Statistics Institute. The number of new buildings has increased by 9% in 2008 in comparison to 2007 and has reached 2939 and the number of apartments in them has increased by 11.5% and has reached 21 041. At the same time the area of the average apartment has decreased by 2 sq. m. from 80.6 sq. m. in 2007 to 78.2 sq. m. in 2008.