ENERGY EFFICIENCY LOANS
The Bulgarian citizens can apply for energy efficiency loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) until the middle of 2008. EBRD is providing a total of 50 million euro but each client will only receive one payment.
The loan has been available in Bulgaria since 2005. Most of the clients are taking up loans of up to 3000 leva with a repayment period of up to three years. 10 000 families have already received 30 million euro in such loans, from six banks. The applicants are mainly from larger cities because there the panel buildings are widely spread, Focus news agency said on August 13.

LONGEST PAYMENT TERMS
On August 13 MKB Unionbank (MKBU) said it is increasing its loan re-payment terms. The bank is already provides loans with a maximum payment term of 35 years, which according to MKBU is the longest re-payment period currently offered on the Bulgarian market. The loans are given in euro or leva at an interest rate of 6.45 per cent. The annual expenses percentage is 6.79 per cent.
MKBU is also offering mortgages for new home-owners with a gratis period up to 12 months.

HIGH CORPORATE BONDS
The Bulgarian American Credit Bank (BACB) issued a 20 million euro corporate bond. BACB will use part of the proceeds from the issue to fund its core activity. Some of the funding raised from the issue will also be used to re-finance older debts of the financial institution. The bonds mature in one year and carry an interest rate equal to the one-year Euribor plus 93 base points. Raiffeisenbank is the lead manager of the issue, Bulgarian language daily Pari reported on August 8.

INVESTMENTS AND DEFICIT
Foreign direct investments (FDI) in Bulgaria amounted to 1.53 billion euro in the period January to May 2007, or 5.7 per cent of GDP, showed preliminary data from the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB). The figure for the same period in 2006 was 1.69 billion euro or 6.8 per cent of GDP. The UK accounted for 15.4 per cent of the FDI in the first five months of 2007, followed by Luxembourg with 12.5 per cent and Spain with 9.5 per cent.
On August 13 BNB said the current account deficit in the country rose to a preliminary 10.6 per cent of the projected GDP through June 2007, from 7.3 per cent a year earlier.
The local current account balance for the first six months of 2007 showed a deficit of 2835.5 billion euro, higher than the 1.839,6 billion euro gap for the same period of 2006, BNB said in a media statement.
The trade deficit in Bulgaria to the end of June increased to 3201.3 billion euro compared to 2204.5 billion euro in the first six months of 2006.