Bulgaria might go out of the recession in 1-2 months
Adelina Marini, August 20, 2009
In case the positive trends for going out of the crisis of the big European states like Germany and France appear sustainable, then Bulgaria could start its upturn 1 or 2 months later. This is the forecast of the senior economic analyst at the Open Society Institute Georgi Angelov who commented for euinside this week's news that Japan has also shown indications for a slow upturn.
"Generally, Bulgaria is 1-2 months after Germany and the big European states, so, if they now are in an upturn, we will be able to feel the recovery the next quarter. In fact we could feel it even now, but the question is whether those trends are sustainable or just one-time positive signals. That is why should wait another 1-2 months to see if the trends are going to remain the same. For example, regarding export, we have quite good data for the last 2 months - in April we had 40% drop while in June it is only 28. In other words for 2 months we have 12 points improvement. If this continues for several months, we will have a strong tendency".
Yesterday it was expected the Ministry of Finance to announce its mid-term fiscal framework for the period 2010-2013 but the presentation has been postponed for at least a week. Georgi Angelov expects though, this framework to show at least first directions of the new policy that the new government will follow. Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect details but at least the main points.
And commenting on the attempts of the financial minister Simeon Dyankov to increase the revenues by fighting vegetables smuggling, Georgi Angelov said that he is skeptic that this might lead to significant results. "So far we haven't seen any results for the last 20 years, in spite the numerous promises. That is why I would suggest that we are more skeptic and not to expect any miracles and if something good happens, that would be great. But I still don't have any data to support the hopes that something dramatical is going to change with regard to the revenues".