STOCKS NEWS EMERGING EUROPE-Orco at new low on funding worries

                                
 STOCKS NEWS                     Reuters           Regional Stocks
                                
 Stocks on the move [HOT-RTRS]   Real-time Equity News [E]  [.CEE]
                                
 REGIONAL INDICES
                                
 Warsaw WIG20 <.WIG20>          Bucharest Beti <.BETI>
                                
 Budapest SE Index <.BUX>       Prague PX <.PX>
                                
 Zagreb Crobex <.CRBEX>         Sofia Sofix <.SOFIX>
                                
 Ljubljana SBI20 <.SBI>         Istanbul ISE National 100 <.XU100>
                                
 
                                
 1105 GMT 29July2008 Orco shares fall to new low on financing concerns
                                
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 Orco Property Group <ORCOsp.PR> falls below 600 crowns on the Prague bourse
for the first time, dropping 9 percent, as sentiment for the real estate sector
deteriorates further due to financing concerns.
                                
 Rival ECM Real Estate Investments <ECMPsp.PR> retreats 6.8 percent. The
index of Polish developers <.DEWE>, which have also been hard in the recent
weeks, fare better, and are down 0.7 percent.
                                
 "The whole sector is down," a Prague trader says. "There is simply no
interest in developers as there are still worries over financing."
                                
 Developers have come under strain due to banks tightening lending
conditions, an environment exacerbated by the global credit crunch and risk
aversion among investors.
                                
 Orco is 83.9 percent down from an all-time high in February 2007, and 72.5
percent lower since the start of 2008.
                                
 rm://jason.hovet.reuters.com@reuters.net


                                
 1025 GMT 29July2008 Sofia drops below key 1,000-points level
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 Bulgaria's blue chip SOFIX index <.SOFIX> falls below the psychological
threshold of 1,000 points for the first time since October 2006 as investors
fretted over EU fund transfers suspended due to widespread graft.
                                
 Traders and analysts say the 2.4 percent drop to 979.9, also blamed on the
negative sentiment on other global stock markets, was exacerbated by Sofia's low
liquidity.
                                
 "Until now there has been a huge enthusiasm about the European Union, about
funds that will flow and investors that will come. This is now disappearing,"
said Ivan Ivanov, finacial consultant with Sofia-based Status Capital.
                                
 rm://tsvetelia.ilieva.reuters.com@reuters.net
                                
 
                                
 
                                
 0804 GMT 29July2008 Petrolinvest up after clearing Kazakh deal hurdle
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 Shares in Petrolinvest <PROL.WA> are among the region's handful of gainers,
jumping 6.1 percent after it cleared another hurdle towards completing a long
awaited deal to expand its presence in Kazakhstan.
                                
 Petrolinvest said late on Monday that its lender PKO BP <PKOB.WA> approved
the agreement to acquire two Kazakh companies and boost its holding in another
one in an all-share deal that was originally announced in January.
                                
 Shares in Petrolinvest have lost nearly half their value since January.
                                
 For more news on Petrolinvest double click [PROL.WA-RTRS-LEN]
                                
 rm://chris.borowski.reuters.com@reuters.net