Bulgarian economy in the next decade – challenges and growth incentives

published on 11/25/10 1:50 PM

Photo: Tania Harizanova

“Green” economic growth will spur the Bulgarian economy in the coming ten years. One million euro will be allocated to the business sector for opening new “green” jobs in the next year. This was announced by Bulgaria’s Environment Minister Nona Karadzhova at the opening of the Bulgarian Economic Forum entitled “Factors for Economic Growth in the Next Decade”. Some of the challenges Bulgaria is facing in 2010 are its extremely energy-consuming productions, the low rate of garbage recycling, and the insufficient use of biomass as energy fuel. Only 1.5 per cent of Bulgarian households have been equipped with gasifiers, with this figure being 50 per cent in the EU. Solid fuels are still widely used, but they are serious environmental polluters, and motorized vehicles in Bulgaria are also quite outdated.
“The cabinet has the right to take tough decisions that could influence the activities of businesses but at the same time, it is obliged to listen to the private sector for feedback”, said Bulgaria’s Minister for EU Funds Tomislav Donchev who addressed the participants in the forum, saying that over the past year a large part of the EU funds have been absorbed. This gives rise to optimistic expectations. Minister Donchev quoted concrete figures of the funds absorbed. Out of 11 billion euro allocated to Bulgaria until the end of 2013, some 3.8 billion euro has already been negotiated. The important question now is where the new EU funds should be spent.

“The most serious question is which economic sectors should receive the largest public support”, said Minister Tomislav Donchev during the forum on Factors for Economic Growth in the Next Decade. “The analyses that we are now making show that the direct investment of public funds in the form of financial assistance for companies has a different impact in different sectors. It is necessary first to choose our priority sectors, and then amend laws or even constitutional changes”, Donchev argued.

“We are now entering a phase of growth”, said at the forum Bulgaria’s Economy Minister Traicho Traikov pointing that for the first time since the start of the crisis, Bulgaria has had a positive growth in its GDP. This is due mainly to an increase in exports which pushes the economy forward, with 60 per cent of the exports growth coming from the industrial production and the processing industry. There is still no significant growth in the interior markets, Minister Traikov commented. He pointed out that the interior market is the factor that will pour fuel into the engine of growth and would give a sign that the psychological crisis is also over.

Which are the priority sectors in the Bulgarian economy?
More from Economy Minister Traicho Traikov:

“These are the sectors related to information and high technologies, green technologies, and healthcare including the pharmaceutical industry and medical tourism. We think that these three sectors that include a lot of industries and manufacturing plants have the highest potential for fast economic growth so that we could reach the 70 per cent of the average GDP per capita in the other EU member states. This is the overall strategy that is to be supported by concrete policies and measures”, Economy Minister Traikov pointed out.

Translated by: Rossitsa Petcova

По публикацията работи: Tanya Harizanova

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Bulgarian economy in the next decade – challenges and growth incentives

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