- The Ministry of Economy is considering closing the State Consolidation Company
- In our country there is a record growth of foreign investments – over BGN 7 billion
Bulgaria’s exports in 2024 will focus on new markets in the east in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Vietnam, the Republic of Korea and Japan.
This was announced at a briefing on Monday by Economy Minister Bogdan Bogdanov, who presented an overview of what has been done so far and set goals for 2024.
The reason for directing exports to the east is that a recession was expected in Europe, as such has already occurred in Germany and Austria, where Bulgaria’s main markets are. In this regard, Bogdanov emphasized that the ministry plans to hold 6 intergovernmental meetings.
According to the minister, last year was extremely successful for investments. “We report a record growth of foreign investors in Bulgaria for 2023, which reached nearly BGN 7 billion in 10 months,” he pointed out. The main profile of the companies currently investing is the manufacturing industry. There was also a serious interest of companies in the automotive industry, as well as in building IT hubs in our country, especially for software for cars.
Bogdanov announced that a new investment intention of over 1.1 billion euros has been announced, which is planned to be implemented in Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Burgas. Work is also underway on one for over 600 million euros, aimed again at the automotive industry, which is expected to be announced by the end of March.
The ministry is discussing closing or restructuring the State Consolidation Company (SCC), and the companies under its umbrella will be united in four main areas – clean technologies and circular economy, defense and aerospace technology, food and biotechnology, critical minerals, metals and raw materials. However, they will not be privatized, Bogdanov specified. The members of the boards of these companies will also be reduced – from 70 to 20 people.
An analysis was to be made of the activities of the enterprises that DKK unites with a capital of BGN 1.2 billion. However, financial statements for 2021 and 2022 were missing, there were violations identified for BGN 700 million. Therefore, the minister does not see the point of the functioning of such a huge structure.
“There is no talk of privatization at the moment, but we must stop the possibility of corrupt practices in awarding, spending money without public procurement, without financial justifications and analyses, betting on state enterprises when taking loans”, he pointed out.
The idea of closing DCK was discussed more than two years ago, when Kiril Petkov was Minister of Economy. It was subsequently stopped by Cornelia Ninova when she took over the leadership of the ministry.
The final decision is to be made this year, as Bogdanov pointed out that one of the main tasks continues to be Bulgaria’s membership in Schengen and the Eurozone, as well as our acceptance into the OECD.
“Regarding the Eurozone, we must ensure a smooth transition for consumers and businesses to use the single European currency. Active efforts will also be made to expand the campaign for our entry into the Eurozone and Schengen, not only by state institutions, but also by businesses. A visit of the Austrian Minister of Economy to our country is also being prepared,” said Bogdanov.
He reported a good development of the “Affordable for you” initiative, where a number of retail chains offer goods at minimum prices. The campaign would grow into a major tool for the transition from leva to the euro. The minister announced that several tools are being worked on to help businesses. The aim was to shorten the investment process and access to information and resources, in order to reduce the possibility of investors being influenced by inefficiency of the state administration.
One of the tools is the construction of a single investment portal that will unite business and all government institutions, as well as facilitate communication with investors. We expect support from the EC for it.
One of the risks facing the business remains the personnel problem, Bogdanov pointed out. According to him, efforts are being made to ease the regime under which citizens from third countries can work in our country, and there will be legislative changes in this direction after March.
2024-01-08 19:00:00
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