30.1.2007

Special Focus: Farmland

Non-traditional asset for this type of investors, in Bulgaria farmland is one of the main targets of the real estate trusts. Out of 34 licensed companies as of the year-end five were focused exclusively on land investments, as another one had invested heavily in this type of asset for risk diversification.

Investment in agricultural land has seen well accepted by some foreign investors. According to the data of the Commission for Financial Supervision towards he third quarter of last year the participation of foreign persons in their market capitalization was 49.06 % out of BGN 196.49 m, well beyond their average foreign share in the sector in Bulgaria.

Every Bulgarian citizen is an owner of some small plots and for this reason for the to twenty years to come the market is expected to be active by the time the processes are regulated, says Petar Vasilev, portfolio manager at Alfa Asset Management, a company managing the mutual investment fund Alfa Index Imoti specialized in special investment purpose real estate companies. That is why, he adds, farmland cannot be considered an exotic investment.

Source: THE BULGARIAN PROPERTY INDEX MAGAZINE