Bulgaria’s Sofia Airport has handled the 5 millionth baggage of a departing passenger from its Terminal 2.

The airport’s EDS baggage handling system checked the 5 millionth baggage of a departing passenger from Terminal 2 at approximately 2:30 pm on Wednesday, according to Sofia Airport‘s official website. The system was installed in 2006, when Terminal 2 was launched.

The owner of the “lucky” baggage traveled to Palma de Mallorca.

For the last month, a total of 233 050 passengers have been served by the largest Bulgarian airport’s two terminals.

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Bulgaria’s Gross Domestic Product at current prices reached a little over BGN 21 M in the third quarter of 2011, according to the country’s National Statistical Institute.

According to the institute’s seasonally adjusted data, the GDP growth rate in the third quarter of 2011 was 0.3% compared with the second quarter of 2011 and 1.6% compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

In the third quarter of 2011, Bulgaria’s GDP per capita amounted to BGN 2 832.8. At an average quarterly exchange rate of BGN 1.3833 per dollar, the GDP amounted to USD 15 .192 M or USD 2 047.8 per person. In Euro terms, the GDP amounted to EUR 10. 745 M or 1 448.4 euro per person.

Bulgaria’s gross value added (GVA) at current prices in the third quarter of 2011 amounted to BGN 17.939 M.

As compared with the third quarter of 2010,  the industrial sector increased its share in the gross value added in the economy by 1 percentage point to 30.7% in the third quarter of 2011. The share of services was 58.7 %, down by 1.9 percentage points as compared with the respective period of the previous year.

In the third quarter of 2011, individual consumption constituted 60.9% of the GDP in Bulgaria’s economy. Investments (gross fixed capital formation) accounted for 17.8% of the GDP. The external balance (exports-imports) was positive amounting to BGN 2 329 M and accounted for 11.1% of the GDP.

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Negotiations on bringing an end to the workers strike at the troubled State-owned Railway Company BDZ Holding are resuming Tuesday as the strike entered its 13th day.

Passenger and freight trains will be, once again, halted between 8 am and 4 pm.

Transport Minister, Ivaylo Moskovski, is joining the talks.

Over the weekend, the BDZ labor unions declared they will negotiate only in the presence of the Transport Minister, after bringing to a standstill on Sunday those with the BDZ management. They say they do not trust the latter over a number of things such as them not having any idea about railways transportation and accuse them of lies and deceit.

The negotiations with Moskovski were supposed to begin Monday, but were later postponed so that the Minister could meet with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, for the two to iron out details on agreements reached so far.

The syndicates see the delay as an attempt to lead the railways to bankruptcy in order to sell Freight Transportation to an investor, already decided on by the cabinet; lay off workers from the remaining structures and create new ones.

The strike was announced as termless. The labor unions are adamant the strike will continue until an agreement is reached with the BDZ management. They demand the signing of a class labor contract under the same parameters as before the announced start of the reform.

The syndicates blame the management of BDZ and the National Company Railroad Infrastructure in applying “lockout” to the strike and replacing striking workers with others without the needed qualifications. They are appealing to more workers to join the strike.

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The Swedish brand H&M, Hennes & Mauritz AB, known across the globe for its fashion retail for women, men and teens, is opening its first store in Bulgaria in March, 2012.

The store is going to be located in one of the top business hubs in the country – the shopping center The Mall in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. It will offer the entire H&M line and will have two floor levels with a total area of 2 200 square meters.

“This is part of our expansion strategy. We will give Bulgarian customers the opportunity to buy fashion and quality clothing at the best possible price. We see huge potential for the development of our business in Bulgaria,” Hennes & Mauritz AB CEO, Karl- Johan Persson, is quoted saying

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (operating as H&M) is a Swedish retail-clothing company, known for its fast-fashion clothing offerings for women, men, teenagers and children.

It has over 2,300 stores in 41 countries and as of 2011 employed around 87,000 people.

The design team in the company’s Sweden office controls the steps of production from merchandise planning to establishing specifications, and production is outsourced to approximately 800 factories in Europe and Asia. These facilities are used for horizontal division of labor rather than being integrated.

The repaired Bulgarian section of Danube Bridge 1 between the city Ruse and Romania‘s Giurgiu was opened Saturday by Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov.

The bridge is the only one existing on the Danube to connect Bulgaria and Romania, for which the Bulgarian government has allocated BGN 1.7 M.

Borisov was accompanied at the ceremony by Regional Minister, Rosen Plevneliev, Transport Minister, Ivaylo Moskovski, and Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov.

“Our Danube capital Ruse needed these reconstruction works. When facts speak for themselves, even the opposition remains quiet. When our visitors enter Bulgaria, they will immediately feel the upsurge that is taking place in our country. Construction works at the Danube 2 bridge are also progressing nicely and I hope once it is finished traffic will double on both” Borisov said at the opening.

The Bulgarian side of Danube Bridge 1 was repaired in the course of two months with works launched on June 30, and finished on time and on schedule. The asphalt pavement, the hydro-isolation and the concrete pavement under the asphalt were fully replaced.

The so-called joint Danube strategy of Bulgaria and Romania includes hydro power cascades on the Danube as well as building more Danube bridges in addition to the existing Danube Bridge 1 and Danube Bridge 2 at Vidin-Calafat, which is still under construction. There have been discussions of combining the future bridges and hydro-power plants.

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The first Bulgarian store of the Swedish furniture giant IKEA aims at attracting over 1.5 million visitors during the first year after its opening.

The information was announced by the Greek Fourlis company, which has the IKEA franchise rights for Bulgaria.

The first IKEA store is located on the capital Sofia‘s beltway and is scheduled to open on September 29th.

The free furniture catalogue is being distributed starting Friday to households in the city in 750 000 copies. The prices listed inside are valid until August, 2012. In addition to Sofia, the catalogue will be distributed in the cities of Plovdiv, Pazardzhik, Pernik and Kuystendil.

Fourlis further announced the company aims at having 10% of the market during the first year and later become a leader, but declined giving details on expected revenues. The company’s management stresses they would focus on having 1.5 million of visitors, which would be deemed a greater success than a large turnover, the Bulgarian Dnevnik daily writes.

Bulgaria has no official data on the furniture market in the country, but according to companies’ experts and consultants it ranges between BGN 450 and 550 M, meaning IKEA‘s sales in the first year could reach BGN 45 to 55 M.

The first IKEA store in Bulgaria will have an area of 29 000 square meters and 1 200 parking spots in the parking lot and garage. It will offer 7 500 products with 55 furnished room models and three different-size apartments.

The plans for its launch date from 2008, but construction did not start until 2010 with the main reason for the delay being the beltway repair works. The road must reopen before the official start of the store.

IKEA plans opening a second store in the Black Sea capital of Varna, but the project is in a very early stage.

With 324 stores in 38 countries IKEA is the largest furniture trader in the world. In 2010, the company’s turnover is estimated at EUR 24 B. In addition to Bulgaria, Fourlis is developing the furniture chain in Greece and Cyprus.

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Bulgaria’s grain yield in 2011 will even be slightly better than it was in 2010, the Agriculture Ministry has indicated.

Thus, Bulgaria’s wheat output is expected to reach 4.1 million tons in 2011, up from 4 million in 2010, while the barley yield is forecast to reach 6.7 million tons.

“We will have more wheat that is suitable for good Bulgarian bread,” Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov declared upon opening the harvest in the village of Bozhurets, Kavarna Municipality, in Northeastern Bulgaria, as cited by Darik Dobrich.

Naydenov, together with the head of the State Agriculture Fund Rumen Porozhanov and 11 associations of grain producers, participated in a sitting of the national Grain Consultative Consul in the northeastern city of Dobrich, the center of Bulgaria’s most fertile grain-producing region Dobrudzha.

Data of the Agriculture Ministry indicates that 89% of the wheat and 86% of the barley from the 2011 harvest will be in a “good” or “very good” condition.

In the fall of 2010, Bulgarian farmers planted wheat on a total of 10.4 million decares, rye – on 65 000 decares, and rapeseed – on 2.3 million decares. The area planted with corn in the spring of 2011 is 17% greater than it was last year, and with sunflower – 5% greater.

The Ministry expects an average yield of wheat of 400 kg per decare, and of barley – 376 kg per decare.

The Bulgarian grain producers have a total of 9 000 harvesters, of which 1 600 are outdated and may no longer be used. However, 2011 is the first year in the past 20 years when over 20% of the harvesters in Bulgaria are “younger” than 10 years.

Bulgaria’s Agriculture Minister has revealed that the government is mulling imposing a limit on state subsidies for agriculture because at present 3.4% of the beneficiaries in Bulgaria receive 78% of the subsidies. Putting a limit on the maximum allowed subsidies will help the state stimulate more people in the rural regions, Naydenov believes.

Italian authorities have captured a Bulgarian truck with a large amount of contraband cigarettes in the Adriatic port of Ancona.

A total of 5.5 tons of illicit cigarettes were found in the truck, which arrived on a ferry boat from Greece.

The smuggled goods were hidden under frozen fish in the refrigerating compartment of the truck.

According to the driver’s documents, the goods carried by the truck were supposed to reach the Netherlands.

The section of the Hemus Highway connecting it to the Sofia beltway will be built by a Bulgarian-Croatian consortium called Hemus A2.

The 8.5 km section of Hemus, the highway linking Sofia and Varna through Northern Bulgaria, is seen as crucial for unloading the heavy traffic in Sofia’s suburban area.

The Hemus A2 consortium was selected after providing the lowest price for the section out of a total of 12 bidders in the tender.

The consortium includes Trace Group Hold, the same company currently constructing Lot 2 of the Trakiya Highway, SK-13 Patstroy AD – Pernik, and Constructor-Engineering AD from Croatia.

The construction of the new Hemus Highway section will be fully funded with EU money – from Operational Program Transport and the Cohesion Fund of the EU.

Currently, only 34% of the Hemus Highway have been constructed – that is, 145 km out of a total of 423 km.

The Hemus Highway is supposed to connect Sofia and Varna on the Black Sea through a shorter route than the southern Trakiya Highway (443 km), passing by several major northern cities – Pleven, Veliko Tarnovo, and Shumen. At present, however, only the start section from Sofia to Yablanitsa and the end section from Shumen to Varna have been completed.

The bids, which were submitted for a section of the future Struma Highway, connecting Sofia to the border with Greece, will be opened on Thursday, the road infrastructure agency announced.

A record number of bidders – 19 – applied with offers to build Lot 1 of the Struma Highway – including companies from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and Greece.

Regional Development Minister Rosen Plevneliev told journalists a month ago that the builder of Lot 1 will be selected by August, and the construction will start by September 2011. He expects an average price of EUR 3.2 M per km from the bidders.

The Lot 1 section between Dolna Dikanya and Dupnitsa is 17 km; EUR 68 M are slated for its construction from EU and state funds.

The Struma Highway starts at the Daskalovo road junction to the west of Sofia, where it will be connected with the short Lyulin Highway, and will run to the Kulata border crossing on the Bulgarian border with Greece. Some of the sections of the 156-km road are promised to be completed by the end of the Borisov Cabinet’s term in 2013. A total of 19 km have been completed so far.

Lot 2 (from Dupnitsa to Simitli, 45 km) and Lot 3 (from Simitli to Sandanski, 60 km) will be harder to build because of the rough terrain, and the Borisov Cabinet has made it clear it plans to complete Lots 1 and 4 by the end of its term in 2013, and to have made progress on the other two.

The Struma Highway will be a priority for the Bulgarian government in 2011 because of the importance of the traffic and economic ties with Greece, and because it is a part of Pan-European Transport Corridor No. 4 (from Central Europe to Thessaloniki and Athens via Vidin and Sofia).

The highway will be the first one in Bulgaria to feature special facilities for wild animals such as bears and hares.

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