Fitch Ratings has affirmed Bulgaria's long-term foreign-currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'BBB' with a positive outlook.
Bulgaria intends to request a reassessment of its progress on convergence criteria in 2H24, which should allow for eurozone entry later in 2025. In Fitch's view, Bulgaria could comply with the price stability criterion in 4Q24 at the earliest, conditional on inflation developments across the EU.
Bulgaria is on course to meet all other euro-adoption nominal criteria (public finances, interest rate and exchange rate). Nonetheless, a lack of stable government and potentially lengthy coalition negotiations could delay the eurozone entry beyond 2025. Overall, we consider euro adoption as supportive to the rating, Fitch writes.
The Agency expects average HICP to be 3.3% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2025, down from 8.6% in 2023. Fitch expects real GDP growth to accelerate to 2.4% in 2024 and further to 3.1% in 2025.
Bulgargaz expects the price of natural gas next month to be 5 to 6% lower as compared to April. During an open meeting at the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, the initially proposed price of EUR29.12 per megawatt-hour was reduced to EUR28.36. The..
200 million Leva (over EUR 102 million) of new debt is expected to be taken out on 13 May this year, according to the Bulgarian National Bank website. This is the date on which an auction has been announced for 6-month treasury bonds with an annual..
The poverty threshold in Bulgaria was BGN 637.92 (EUR 323) per person per month in 2023. This is an increase of 21.3 per cent compared with the previous year , when the indicator was BGN 525.92 (EUR 266), the National Statistical Institute said. I..
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