Microeconomics

The National Employment Agency reports an increase in the number of unemployed young people in Bulgaria under the age of 24. This became clear from the Agency's statistics for December 2019 compared to January 2020.

The range and the levels of fees and commissions that local banks can charge retail and commercial clients have been lowered, the Turkish Central Bank and the country's banking watchdog regulator (BDDK) have announced.

The measures will cut the various charges banks can charge financial consumers to 16 from 20, the BDDK said.

Total Producer Price Indices in Industry

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 3.9pct in December last year, from 4pct in November, and the number of the unemployed decreased to 354,000 people, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS) published on Thursday. In November 2019, the number of unemployed people aged 15-74 was 366,000, and in December 2018 - 359,000.

Greek-Cypriot consumers are crying foul over rising gas prices at the pump, with some resorting to crossing the checkpoints to the Turkish-occupied northern part of the island to fill up, as the government draws criticism for failing to meet EU energy goals.

A three-member court in Athens on Friday handed a six-month suspended sentence to the school bus driver and two escorts for abandoning a 3-year-old boy in a bus for at least three hours on October 2019.

The court, accepting the prosecutor's proposal, turned the charge of exposing a child to danger to negligent bodily harm.

As of today, the minimum wage will be BGN 610. Its amount increased by BGN 50 or 8.9% compared to last year.

Since the beginning of the year the hourly wage for work has increased. It is now BGN 3.66 per hour. The minimum unemployment benefit remains BGN 9 per day and the maximum - BGN 74 per day.

Kathimerini looks into the impact of the alleged OneCoin pyramid scheme on investors in Greece.

A luxury hotel with 553 rooms and 1,209 beds in the resort town of Kemer will be auctioned for a minimum value of 144 million Turkish Liras (nearly $24.4 million).

The appraised value of the property, which also includes thousands of trees and ornamental plants, is twice as much of the minimum auction value, according to a report prepared as part of a foreclosure decree.

Expensive boutiques buy the best clothes and accessories from second-hand stores to resell them at least double and triple the prices, Telegraph reported. This was also confirmed by the head of the Association of processors and second-hand apparel retailers Sevdalin Spasov.