Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Bulgaria has declined in the first five months of 2004 to EUR 435.9 million, down 22.4% on the year-ago period, preliminary data of the BNB show. According to Foreign Investment Agency deputy chair Lyudmil Mihaylov, these are intermediate figures and they do not reflect the actual results. Equity capital attracted in January-May amounted to EUR 82.5 million and accounted for 18.9% of the total FDI for the period. For the year-ago period, equity capital stood at EUR 90.8 million. Equity capital from privatisation totalled EUR 45.2 million in January-May, non-privatisation deals made up the remaining EUR 37.3 million. As much as EUR 322 million was attracted in the form of loans between foreign-interest companies and direct investment. In terms of countries, the biggest investments in January-May were made by the Netherlands (39.1%), Austria (22.6%) and Switzerland (20.6%). Source: Devni