/ world today news/ There is no doubt that we owe a lot to the International Monetary Fund and it is not fair to make accusations about its work. All the financial stability that we enjoy in Bulgaria today has its origins in the introduction of the currency board, which happened with the intervention, proposal and money of the International Monetary Fund.
Over the past seven days, I have been repeating, and am glad to hear, that other well-known analyst colleagues of mine share the view that public finances are in good health. The outlook for Bulgaria until the end of the year is good, as long as it is not somehow changed and directed in another direction, thanks to similar statements as you heard yesterday from the leader of the major opposition party. His statement is false regarding Bulgaria.
The IMF is a very serious organization to which we as a country and people are obliged. They were the first to come in 1991 with much better intentions than some others who came to us at the same time and whose names I will not mention. In 1990, their experts helped all Bulgarian specialists through training to move to knowledge that did not exist in our country. Experts helped us move to a market economy. It is not at all true that we have done anything under the “Run-It” program, who are trying to take such credit for themselves. They did nothing, even though they were in Bulgaria. It was the IMF experts who helped with this literacy. They helped to introduce value added tax. Some people might not like it, but it was all inevitable. We had taken this path. This was required of us, all countries in transition, after the Berlin Wall fell /1989/ and after we promised that we would follow the path of a market economy. Everything I talk about here can be seen and documented.
It is not true that the IMF is present in countries that have gone downhill. Only a few years ago, Poland approached the Loan Fund with a decision of its government. Warsaw received this support. The reason was that Poland had balance of payments problems. These problems were overcome very quickly and now this country is set as an example and everyone praises its economic situation. A few years ago, Romania also asked for help. What happened next? Now we all say that Romania is very good. Bulgaria had several programs with the IMF, we stopped this kind of cooperation with them after we entered the EU, we switched to the currency board and we no longer needed such a program, because the currency board is an organization that directs money to the balance of payments, i.e. . when there are foreign exchange obligations in the payments of the parties, it makes a comprehensive program of regulation. With us, there was no such need, since we had a fixed currency and were in a different condition.
Today we maintain relations with the IMF, but on a different basis. Unfortunately, there is a misconception in our country that if the IMF comes again, we are completely dead and they will impose harsh conditions on us. These are completely false things.
There are people in Bulgaria who want to repeat the scenario from 1996. But it cannot be the same, because everything is very different. They won’t get what they want. I am now convinced that they are purposefully blowing up a story that is not directed against a specific banker or bank, it is directed against the stability and condition of our entire country. I want people to understand that Bulgarians should not be indifferent and not only some rich person will lose their money, but the whole country will be set back if we allow this to happen. Years ago.
There is no need to call the International Monetary Fund, because the country’s foreign exchange reserves in the BNB are 14 billion euros at the moment. In 1996, they were $400 million.
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Professor Hristina Vucheva, economist and long-time teacher at UNSS. She is a former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister in the first caretaker government with Prime Minister Reneta Injova /1994-1995/.
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