FISCAL RESERVE UP
The fiscal reserve rose by 34.8 per cent to 3.76 billion euro at the end of July, Finance Ministry data said. The strong improvement was due to continuous surpluses in the budget balance, the Ministry said. The government held about 80 per cent of the reserves with the Bulgarian National Bank. The fiscal reserve covered 65.3 per cent of the public debt at the end of July and the ratio would further improve in the coming months, due to seasonal surpluses in the general budget and privatisation receipts.

S&P ON BULGARIA
The international rating agency Standard & Poors has ranked Bulgaria among the countries strongly exposed to the risks of a world liquidity crisis in a report named “Which Way Now For EMEA Sovereign Ratings, As The Credit Cycle Turns Sour?” The Liquidity Vulnerability Index, which aggregates different ratios used when identifying emerging debt crises, defined Bulgaria as the third most vulnerable country after Latvia and Iceland, in a sample of 15 countries. The index, however, is not used for identifying future rating actions, as policy reactions would play a key role. The agency pointed out, in a recent report on Bulgaria, that the risks are offset by prudent fiscal policies and strong economic and export growth potential. 

UN ON BULGARIA
Bulgaria came last in a UN labour productivity chart on developed countries, the Austrian Der Standard said, citing a survey of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The USA was first, where every employee invested an average of about $64 000 in the country’s GDP. Next were Ireland and Belgium. The ILO said that the chart was different if productivity was compared with working hours.

INTERNATIONAL RESERVES
The stock of international reserves rose by 26.9 per cent in August, to10.3 billion euro as of the end of the month, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said. Debt accumulation and foreign investments were the main factors that caused the indicator to increase during the month. External debt accumulation is an important contributor as it reached more than 76 per cent of the projected full-year GDP as of the end of June, compared with 68.9 per cent a year ago. The foreign reserve coverage remained slightly above 5 months of imports of goods and services, which provides a relatively good position for the central bank to maintain the currency stability. 

E-LIBRARIES
More than 1000 libraries will gain online access to information under the Global Libraries initiative, jointly run by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ministry of Culture. The implementation of the project will take into account the needs of the public in the smallest and most remote places of Bulgaria.

WELCOME NOKIA
Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov officially invited Nokia to move some of its production facilities to Bulgaria. On September 3, Dimitrov met  Paavo Vayrynen, Finland’s minister for foreign trade and development at a Bulgarian-Finnish business forum held in Sofia. Dimitrov offered to provide  land and administrative and infrastructure support to Nokia.

AIR ROAD PROBLEM
A road passing through the runaways of the brand new Sofia Airport might be the reason why the airport would not obtain second-class category at the end of September, Minister of Transport Petar Moutafchiev said on September 3. The categorisation would allow aircraft to land on the runway, even in a foggy weather. To obtain the category the Ministry has to solve a problem of a road passing through the runways. The road is owned by Sofia municipality but because of the October 28 local elections the paperwork on it might be delayed. The deadline for obtaining the categorisation is September 27. The fact the airport does not have a second-class category was the reason hundreds of passengers were stranded at the airport this spring because of the fog. 

AVIATION SAFEGUARD
The aviation safeguard clause, imposed on Bulgaria by the European Commission (EC), could be lifted by the end of the year, according to Transport Minister Petar Moutafchiev. In November the EC and the European Aviation Safety Agency will conduct a check, followed by an inspection by the US aviation authorities. The later will asses the possibility for Bulgarian aviation companies to run flights to the US.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM
Bulgaria climbed nine places up the Economic Freedom index (EFI) and currently occupies  56th place, out of 141 countries. Bulgaria shares its place with Poland, Greece and Uruguay.
The EFI report was published by the Canadian-based Fraser Institute and was presented in Sofia, on September 4, by the Institute for Market Economics, Fraser Institute’s partner in Bulgaria. Hong Kong remains in first place, followed by Singapore and New Zealand. Zimbabwe and Myanmar had the lowest economic freedom ratings of the countries measured.
The index measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries support economic freedom. The Fraser Institute uses 42 data points to construct a summary index and to measure the degree of economic freedom in five broad areas. Each country was awarded scores ranging between 0 and 10, where 10 indicated the highest degree of economic freedom.

COMPUTER SALES
Personal computer sales are expected to increase by 40.1 per cent this year, accelerating from 3.5 per cent last year, according to data from the research agency IDC. The average growth of the computer market is forecast at 20.1 per cent a year, until 2011. The share of laptop computers is expected to reach 52 per cent of total sales. The expansion of the market has resulted from lower prices and an improved economic environment. An earlier analysis of IDC indicated that the local IT market is projected to expand by 47.7 per cent over two years, to $791 million in 2009. Hardware sales are expected to keep their share of about 71 per cent of the total.