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.
Although bilateral trade reached nearly $4 billion last year, there are still untapped opportunities to further increase Bulgarian exports to China. This was made clear at a meeting between the Minister of Economy and Industry, Mr. Petko Nikolov, and..
Housing loans in Bulgaria increased by 24.8% year-on-year, reaching BGN 22.3 billion (EUR 11.4 billion) by the end of June 2024, according to the BGNES news agency. Consumer loans also rose by 14% year-on-year compared to June 2023, reaching BGN..
Bulgaria’s real GDP growth is expected to stand at 2.1% in 2024, indicates the macroeconomic forecast of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) in June. Bulgaria’s real GDP growth is expected to stand at 2.1 per cent in 2024, driven by the positive..
Moody's expects Bulgaria to join the Eurozone no later than the beginning of 2026. According to the rating agency, the growth of the Bulgarian economy in..
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