The Bulgarian leasing industry, which seemed for a while like it
might maintain growth despite the global recession sweeping
into southeast Europe, seems finally to have run out of steam.
Whereas the country’s total lease book stood at €2.9 billion at
the close of march, 39 percent up year on year, the figure
represented a 1.6 percent stumble down from December’s peak, and a
drastic deceleration from the nation’s Q4 2008 interannual growth
rate of 60 percent.
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Worse yet, the default rate in this troubled national portfolio
has soared from €49 million last quarter to a positively brutal
€249 million, demonstrating an increase of 500 percent.
At least the industry has managed to outpace Bulgaria’s GDP, of
which leasing business now makes up 8.6 percent, and which looks to
have suffered an interquartile battering of between three and four
percent.
This bleak pronouncement was made in a preliminary statement by
Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov at the opening of the Plovdiv
international fair, and represents twice the decline feared by
macroeconomists in Sofia last year.
Fred Crawley
