THE GOVERNMENT APPROVED SHORT-TERM MEASURES TO RESTORE THE BULGARIAN ECONOMY
The Government considered a programme covering short-term economic measures (for a nine-month period) to restore the Bulgarian economy. At a press conference today, following the Cabinet’s session, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov and the Minister of Labour and Social Policy Totyu Mladenov reported that the document was sent to the National Assembly, for additional discussions. It will be adopted by the Cabinet next week and thereafter, it will be presented to the European Commission, as well. “The new Government is a working one and that is the difference compared to the former Cabinet. This fact must be seen by our European partners”, said Simeon Djankov.
The document covers 82 measures, structured in eight parts. In the part “Sustainability of the macroeconomic system”, the maintenance of a balanced budget for this year and activation of Bulgaria’s activity concerning the accession to the ÅRÌ-2 mechanism has been provided. In the part “Sustainability of the financial system”, ineffective expenses reduction in the public budget structures by 15 percent, maintenance of the flat rate of the value added tax at 20 percent and provision of mutual access to the information systems of the Customs and the National Revenue Agency has been laid down. The third part of the measures is related to improving the business environment, the fourth one – to activating the agrarian production. The Deputy Prime Minister Djankov added that in the short-term economic measures, the infrastructure projects to be implemented during that period have been stated in detail. For the first time ever, an analysis of the infrastructure projects in the field of ecology has also been included. The other parts of the programme are related to encouraging employment and social assistance, development of the knowledge-based economy, effective management of the resources from the European Funds.
The document integrated all 32 measures, which were approved yesterday by the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC). The discussions in the Working Group at the NCTC of more measures for which no consent has been achieved by the social partners up to now will continue, reported Minister Mladenov. He expressed his satisfaction of the joint work in the tripartite format and in the Sectoral Councils within each Ministry, as well as of the Regional Councils for Tripartite Cooperation, headed by the Regional Governors. In this way, the social dialogue is conducted at many levels guaranteeing good results, added Minister Mladenov.
