Bulgaria attracted a total of EUR 225.6 M of foreign direct investment in the first eight months of 2011, according to preliminary data of the Bulgarian National Bank.

Thus, Bulgaria's FDI in January-August 2011 – EUR 225.6 M which is 0.6% of the GDP – is almost four times smaller than the FDI it got in the same period of 2010 – EUR 926.5 M (2.6%) of the GDP.

The latest data nonetheless shows a positive trend, since in the first six months of 2011 Bulgaria's FDI balance was hardly positive.

BNB's data indicates that Bulgaria's attracted Equity Capital (acquisition/disposal of shares and equities in cash and contributions in kind by non-residents in/from the capital and reserves of Bulgarian enterprises and receipts/payments from/for real estate deals in the country) for January – August 2011 amounted to EUR 374.3 M. It decreased by EUR 444.6 M compared to that attracted in the same period of 2010 (EUR 818.9 M).

The receipts from real estate investments of non-residents amounted to EUR 178 M, compared to EUR 144.9 M attracted in January-August 2010.

The other capital, net (the change in the net liabilities of the direct investment enterprise to the direct investor on financial loans, suppliers' credits and debt securities) was negative, amounting to EUR 209.9 M in January-August 2011, compared to a positive other capital, net of EUR 36.6 M in January-August 2010.

Based on preliminary data on profit/loss, the reinvested rarnings (the share of non-residents in the undistributed earnings/ loss of the enterprise) in January-August 2011 were estimated at EUR 61.1 M, compared with EUR 71 M in the same period of 2010.

By country, the largest direct investments in Bulgaria for the period January – August 2011 were those of the Netherlands (EUR 172.9 M) and Russia (EUR 114.7 M). The largest negative flows for the period were towards Germany (EUR 146 M) and the United Kingdom (EUR 110.1 M), mainly due to net payments on intercompany credits in accordance with the loan repayment schedules of enterprises, the Bulgarian National Bank said.

According to preliminary data in January-August 2011, Bulgaria's direct investment abroad amounted to EUR 67.7 M, compared to EUR 121.7 M in January-August 2010.

According to BNB data, Bulgaria's FDI in the first half of 2011 amounted to EUR 7.9 M. In 2010, Bulgaria's FDI was EUR 1.64 B, and in 2009 - EUR 2.4 B, after the peak pre-crisis levels of EUR 9.05 B in 2007, and EUR 6.7 B in 2010.

In an interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) earlier this week, Borislav Stefanov, CEO of the InvestBulgaria Agency explained the limitations of the methodologies used in order to calculate Bulgaria's FDI, and provided a more thorough analysis, stressing that foreign investors' interest in Bulgaria is actually growing regardless of the statistics.

Full Text of the interview of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) with InvestBulgaria Agency CEO Borislav Stefanov READ HERE

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