Fri, Feb 10 2012
Government plan to give money to municipalities leads to war of words and wrangling among beneficiaries.
Apart from banning all construction within 100 metres of the sea, the new proposals envision that all beaches, small and large, must be under municipal control.
A total of 4792 projects have been certified as safe by authorities, amongst them hospitals, power plants, road reconstruction and rehabilitation projects and railway stations.
Black Sea town of Primorsko will have a new summer theatre as part of a wider overhaul.
Hundreds of millions of euro to be spent by scheduled completion date of two-phase project in 2010
After being put on hold in September 2008, the refurbishment of numerous Bulgarian roads is set to start up again.
Erecting signs against political opponents has become the latest political fashion
Sofia prosecutors filed the bill of indictment against Vesselin Georgiev, the former head of the National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF), on January 15 2009, almost a year he was accused of in corruption in an investigation by Bulgarian-language weekly Kapital. In January 2008, the weekly reported that Georgiev was involved in a serious conflict of interest. His younger brother, Emil Georgiev, and the company he ran, Binder, had been assigned work worth 120 million leva of EU funds by the NRIF. Furthermore, Vesselin Georgiev himself was a former director at Binder.
Average market prices of homes in Sofia fell by one per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to the same period of 2010, according to the Raiffeisen Real Estate Index, as quoted by Klasa daily.
Proportionately, the number of transactions in leva increased as people reacted to speculation that the euro would disappear.
Nearly all banks are ready to finance between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of the price of a home, provided it is a good building in a large city, Bulgarian daily says.
Property prices in Bulgaria were five to 10 per cent lower in 2011 than in 2010, while initial estimates for this year are that they will remain largely unchanged, with transactions remaining at ‘crisis levels’.
Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia ranks 17th, report says, quoting Global Property Guide.