Bulgaria’s leasing market, worth about 1.2 billion leva (615 million euro) in 2005, will double in the next year or two as investments in Bulgaria and the proportion of lease-financing increase. “I expect that the portfolio of Bulgarian leasing companies will triple in size by 2010,” Teodor Marinov, co-chairman of the Bulgarian Association for Leasing (BAL), told a news conference on April 5. Bulgaria’s leasing market grew 28 per cent last year, according to data presented by the association that included about 95 per cent of the involved companies. Real estate financial leasing contracts will double in 2006 from 80.2 million leva in 2005 and computer and electronic equipment financial leasing contracts will grow five times from the 5.9 million leva seen last year, Marinov said. The biggest share of new financial leasing contracts in 2005, 33 per cent of the total, was for industrial equipment. New financial leasing for cars accounted for 29 per cent and new financial leasing for trucks for 24 per cent of total new financial leasing contracts. Deals on cars accounted for 70.5 per cent of total new operational leasing contracts, which totalled 11.4 million leva in 2005. New operational leasing contracts on cars will double in size in 2006, Marinov said. He expects leasing will account for five percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the short term and up to eight percent in the long term, up from 2.9 per cent last year. In 2005, new leasing business accounted for 9.2 per cent of the total investment in Bulgaria, up from four per cent in 2004, while in Romania, a similar market, the proportion was 12.3 per cent, according to association data. The Bulgarian Association for Leasing was established in late 2005 through a merger of the non-profit-making associations Bulgarian Association of the Leasing Companies and Bulgarian Association for Development of the Leasing Business. “Our strategy is to support the development of the leasing industry, which works for the economic growth of the country. In the future, the association will keep taking care of the introduction of European criteria and norms on the leasing market, as well as of the popularisation of the specific financial service,” Marinov said. According to Stanislav Tanushev, the list of association members will certainly grow by the end of the year, since the process of accepting new applicants has been delayed because of the administrative and legal procedures for the merger. The BAL is already a full member of Leaseurope – the European Federation of Leasing Company Associations, established in 1972. It requires that its members provide analyses and summarised data about the condition of the national markets, including the Bulgarian one, the association managing board explained. The one thing that was absent so far – information about the quantity parameters of the business, will become another priority of the new branch union and will give a clear vision of the players and dynamics of the Bulgarian leasing market growth. Leasing companies that are subject to the registration regime with the Banking Supervision Department of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) have not been monitored until recently. Neither has their activity been regulated. Their status will not change, despite that from late 2005 the central bank decided to cover and systematise the statistical figures for the lease market. For now, there is a serious discrepancy between the leasing market data by the association and the figures presented in February by BNB. http://www.sofiaecho.com/(17.04.2006)