The volume of overdue intercompany payments in Bulgaria increased 54 per cent in 2009 year-on-year,
Coface Bulgaria said Thursday.

Coface Bulgaria is part of the international network of the receivables, credit insurance and factoring information and management companies Coface.

Close to 70 per cent of transactions among Bulgarian companies are paid with delays. While the delays were between 60 and 90 days in 2008, in 2009 they ranged from 120 to 150 days.

The indebtedness structure remained unchanged last year. Some 84per cent of overdue payments were due to the debtor's insolvency, 15 per cent were due to challenged liabilities and less than 1 per cent due to bankruptcy.

The highest-risk sectors (in terms of payment delay likelihood) are construction, agriculture, transport, the textile and heavy machine building.

Coface expects overdue payments to increase by 10 per cent or more in the first half of 2010 compared to the end of 2009.

The expectations are for a stable economic picture and improvement of business climate in Bulgaria in the second half of 2010.