Bulgaria's January industrial output rose by a provisional 1.1% month-on-month after a revised 2.9% increase in December, while industrial sales went up by a monthly 1.6% following a revised 4.2% decrease in the previous month, data of the statistics office indicated.

The Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) announced changes in the composition of four of its indices effective from March 18.

The volume of Bulgaria’s Internet advertising market continued to grow in 2012, by 25.1%, according to a study conducted by business organization IAB Bulgaria.

Bulgaria's industrial producer prices posted the steepest monthly fall, by 0.8%, among all European Union member states in January, the bloc's statistics office reported.

Bulgaria posted a 536.5 million lev ($360.1 million/274.3 million euro) consolidated budget deficit in January, compared with the 297.8 million lev gap it posted a year ago, preliminary finance ministry figures showed.

Bulgaria's February business sentiment index rose by 5.7 percentage points from the previous month after declining by 3.2 percentage points in January, the National Statistics Institute (NSI) said.

The European Commission said it has approved a contribution of 274 million euro ($358.3 million) under its operational programme Transport for the construction of Bulgaria’s Struma motorway.

Twelve bids have been filed in a tender for the supervision of the construction of a 64 kilometre section of the Struma motorway between the towns of Blagoevgrad and Sandanski, the Road Infrastructure Agency said.

Bulgaria's gross foreign debt totalled 37.85 billion euro ($49.9 billion) at the end of last year, up from 35.85 billion euro at the end of 2011, the central bank said.