The European Commission will publish later this year its annual report on the European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The SME Performance Review is one of the main tools the European Commission uses to assess and monitor the progress of the EU member states in implementing the Small Business Act on a yearly basis. The report uses ten policy dimensions to measure the progress of the EU countries in this field. Bulgaria is near or above the EU average in three policy dimensions. Unfortunately it lags behind in the other seven policy dimensions. Bulgaria was assessed with the mark 2 under the 1 to 5 scale, Eleonora Negulova from the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency told Horizont channel of the Bulgarian National Radio. This assessment shows that the Bulgarian economy has stabilized and that the growth in some sectors of the national economy is bigger than the country’s average, Eleonora Negulova commented.

A lot more can be done in the category micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The previous SME Performance Review of the European Commission covered 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. During that period the efforts of the Bulgarian authorities were mainly focused on overcoming the administrative burden on the local business. This country has registered significant progress in this field. The authorities made amendments to several acts. As a result, the administrative burden on the business has decreased significantly and the country’s administration now has the obligation to verify through official channels between 10 and 15 documents. Thus, the business saves time and money, because in the past the companies had to pay fees, in order to receive this documentation. The SMEs viewed these fees as indirect taxes. Moreover, a very serious step was made with regard to the so-called silent consent. In other words, a given company is given a green light on its undertaking if it does not receive any refusal by the competent administration in the course of one month.

Bulgaria seriously lags behind other EU countries in terms of the entrepreneurship criterion. Entrepreneurial culture in Bulgaria has not reached the necessary level yet, Eleonora Negulova went on to say. The good news is that this subject has become part of the mandatory curriculum in the Bulgarian high-schools.

Bulgaria seriously lags behind in the field of innovations, which is a clear indicator of the level of competitiveness of each national economy. The Bulgarian society does not yet comprehend the role of business in its social and economic development. As a result, the people who make political and other types of decisions in this country cannot choose the best measures to make entrepreneurship a way of thinking in Bulgaria. We lag behind in terms of the readiness of the Bulgarian enterprises to create and implement innovations in their business. This is a reflection of the educational system and the way the Bulgarian students are introduced into the economy and the labor market. Secondly, many Bulgarians start working for foreign economies after they graduate in Bulgaria which also affects this country’s potential in the innovation field. Moreover, it is not enough to win a project, in order to implement it. You must be able to refinance it, so that the project reaches the phase in which a prototype is developed. The knowledge of financial engineering is very essential. It is not enough to find a good bank as a partner only, because it may offer you a loan, but you must secure this loan afterwards. However, start-up companies do not have enough financial security and cannot guarantee their final result. That is why the entrepreneurs must have good knowledge of financial engineering. They should know whether they can rely on the support of the National Guarantee Fund, or on any specialized guarantee funds which can also provide support and assistance to their business, etc. In other words, we need a national network of business centers whose task is to support companies which may potentially boost the economic development in a given Bulgarian region. In August 2016 the Bulgarian government defined this measure as a strategic measure, but its implementation has been insufficient, Eleonora Negulova added.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov