In the opinion of the Minister of Finance, Mr. Peter Chobanov, the fiscal stability in our country remains in the focus of priorities. An active work towards increasing the revenues, relevant to decreasing the administrative burden to the businesses, has been done. Intensive control over identified sectors at risk and changes to the legislation aiming to prevent VAT larceny has also been conducted.
The collectibility of the revenues should be improved along with the resources of the state companies in private banks, personnel changes at the Customs Agency and the National Revenue Agency should also be conducted.
Minister Chobanov highlighted that the revised prognoses of the economic growth, the absence of the buffers since the beginning of the year, the failure to fulfill the revenues of one billion levs and the preparation of the next year’s budget have been the main reasons for the actualization of the budget. The Maastricht criteria regarding the shortage of 3% shall be observed at the actualization.
Within the discussion of the round-table, organized by the Bank of the Year Association, and on the occasion of the Bank of the Year Awards, the President of the Bulgarian National Bank, Mr. Iskrov defined the current state of our banking system as good.
Despite the harsh economic environment, there is a high level of liquidity and capital adequacy, even higher than required by the international regulatory authorities.
Mr. Iskrov called on banks to decrease the rates of the loans interests with utmost attention, and circumspect to some of their products such as the fixed-rate loans, in particular. It is expected that the price of the borrowed funds will rise, thus the price of the end credit product – the loan will grow, too. The volume of the overdue (so called “bad”) credits within our banking system amounts to 17%.