Bulgaria, a nation with a rich history and a growing economy, has a complex relationship with gambling. While the country has its own regulated gambling market, many Bulgarians are increasingly turning to EU-based online betting sites. This phenomenon raises several questions about the motivations behind this trend, the legal landscape and the implications for both…
Slovakia’s housing sector is experiencing its sharpest slowdown in years, with the number of newly completed homes falling to its lowest level since 2017, according to fresh data from the Statistics Office. Just over 17,600 homes were finished in 2024, a decline of nearly 16 % compared to the previous year. The downturn was particularly…
“Ivkoni Express”, a private railway company affiliated with the bus carrier “Union Ivkoni”, has officially received a license to operate rail passenger transport in Bulgaria. The license was granted on February 11, signed by Transport Minister Grozdan Karadzhov, according to documentation from the Executive Agency “Railway Administration”. With this license, “Ivkoni Express” becomes the third…
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has recorded a halt in the trend of decreasing interest rates on deposits and expects their further increase following the latest monetary policy decisions, the NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy has said. “The downward trend in deposit interest rates has stopped. Moreover, in January, we recorded a slight, but significant…
On March 4, the Finance Ministry of Ukraine raised UAH 6.7 billion to the state budget at an auction for the placement of domestic government bonds. The ministry’s press service wrote this on Facebook. The Finance Ministry offered investors hryvnia-denominated domestic government bonds: UAH 979 billion at 15.85% with a 1.4-year maturity, UAH 619 million…
At the end of February, Bulgaria’s budget recorded a deficit of 1 billion leva (500 million euros), a significant increase compared to February 2024, once one-off effects are excluded. This marks a shift from the surplus seen in January, when the treasury had a balance of 563.9 million leva under the consolidated fiscal program, which…
Swedish retail group ICA Gruppen announced on March 5 that it was selling its Rimi stores in the Baltic States to the Danish retail giant Salling Group. Denmark’s Salling Group is set to acquire Rimi stores for EUR 1.3 billion, taking ownership of 314 stores located in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As part of the…