‘The most important thing right now is to guarantee fuel prices in Bulgaria. We observe them every day, they are the best compared to other EU countries. This is what Bogdan Bogdanov, Minister of Economy and Industry, said in the morning block of BTV.
‘The checks are still going on to see what exactly happened and how it happened around Bulgaria’s payment for Russian oil. When we have vertically integrated companies like Lukoil that control the entire supply chain, we can have what is called transfer pricing, which is a fundamental problem in these types of operators. If there are commercial violations, the economic operator has to bear the consequences,’ the Economy Minister said.
According to him, Bulgaria is already more prepared in terms of experts, plan and timetable, and shocks are not expected if the derogation falls in March.
On the budget for 2024, Minister Bogdanov commented that this is one of the best budgets that has been made in recent years. He described the budget as transparent, with good spending in all areas. Bogdanov expressed confidence that the deficit would remain as it is set — 3%.
In his words, the government is doing its best to attract strategic investors to the country and gave as an example the investment of more than EUR 1 billion announced this week in the production of batteries for electric vehicles, which will create more than 1,000 jobs.
The economy minister stressed that the government is doing its best to control the price of food in the country, as more and more retail chains want to join the ‘Affordable for you’ campaign, which was launched a month ago.
Bogdanov announced that action has been taken to recover nearly BGN 70 million excluding VAT paid in advance to the subcontractor in 2020 in connection with the construction of a new government complex. To date, the project contractor has not reimbursed the amounts advanced to it for the implementation of a project without financial justification. ‘They had a deadline until 4 December to return some of the funds to SCC so the state and taxpayers would not pay interest on this project. We will continue to legally demand these funds,’ he insisted.
Bogdanov also said that he had lowered his confidence in the management of the Consumer Protection Commission and asked for their resignations.