"It is quite likely that in 2024 to achieve an inflation level of around 3% or slightly above it. The EC's forecast seems realistic to me.
This was commented to the BNR by the economist Georgi Vuldjev from the Expert Club for Economics and Politics.
According to him, we will most likely not meet the euro zone criterion for next month, when the convergence report is expected. In this sense, he expects the EC to say that our accession should be postponed. According to him, it is more realistic to enter the Eurozone in 2026.
It is also important when the Law on the introduction of the euro will be adopted, noted the economist and added that it depends on the political situation in the parliament. According to him, from this point of view there should be no delay.
Vuldjev does not expect new income growth until the end of the year:
"In our country, wages grew at a fairly high rate even during high inflation. Even then we had growth in real incomes, i.e. the difference between wage growth and price growth was positive for most of the inflationary period.
So in recent years, for a large part of the Bulgarian economy, there is no loss of purchasing power, or if there was a temporary loss, it has already been fully compensated and we are once again in a period of real income growth. I don't see a factor that will significantly limit growth in the foreseeable future.
The economist emphasized that in our country the labor market always works at very high speeds, because most often we have a problem with a shortage of personnel, not with a surplus. Even if the circumstances in the global economy worsen, here wages still continue to grow at high rates, simply because there are no people, he explained.
According to him, there are currently the most economic risks in the fiscal sphere. According to him, we will probably have a problem with the implementation of the budget for this year, especially in its revenue part.
"There is a prospect of opening a hole in VAT revenue towards the end of the year – about 2 billion – the biggest we have had since 2014", warned Georgi Vuldjev.
According to him, an update or some very large subsequent reduction of capital expenditures may be necessary, which will be bad for the economic growth of the country. According to him, there will be no desire to take out new debt, because this would lead to a deeper deficit than planned, which would cause us to fail to fulfill another criterion for joining the eurozone.