The political crisis in our country it does not affect our economy in the short term, up to a year or two, Prof. Krasen Stanchev from the Institute for Market Economy said in an interview with BNR.
"The political crisis affects those who are highly regulated, rather the big companies and in the energy sector. And it is about 10% of the population whose income directly depends on the change of government. And those on the budget pump, whether you are in the BNR or universities and schools, the change of governments does not affect them," Stanchev said.
And explained that the business climate outside these areas, without direct government intervention and public procurement, is good.
"Our economy is doing very well, better. The most interesting thing in the latest statistics, including a few days ago, on foreign investments of the BNB, shows that in 2023, investments are 11 times more than in 2014. If we also take the relative data on foreign investments, they are 4% of the economy&ldquo ; said Prof. Krasen Stanchev.
According to him, this is mainly due to the investments made from 1997 to 2009, which continue to work.
And he commented that “it is not bad to know that from 2002 to 2023 the growth of the average salary is 17%, there is no such growth in the whole EU”.
And explained:
"The reason is that there are no people, not the government's policy on health insurance and other income policies, including pensions. The main thing is that there are no people."
Assoc. Stanchev warned that there are also risks of a crisis:
"The main risks in Bulgaria are political and the main one is to preserve the current situation in the allocation of portions. This is the internal risk, the external one is related to the delay with the help of the EU, the civilized world and the USA for Ukraine."
He predicts that Bulgaria will have a relatively permanent government in 2026.
And he admitted that the Recovery Plan money is not a good thing.
"I am not of the opinion that it is a good thing, because somewhere around 65% of these funds go through the government. This does not always have a positive effect on the economy. Because when you have so many donations, from German taxpayers for example, a queue is formed to receive and no other investments happen, which explains the weak growth of investments from Bulgarian national companies."