12.03.2016

I require from the managements of the NRA and the Customs Agency the revenues to be more than last year, said Minister of Finance Vladislav Goranov in an interview for Capital daily in regard to the MoF objectives for revenue collection. He pointed out that based on daily monitoring even at the beginning of this year the revenue administrations demonstrated good results. Besides, according to the Minister, the share of the informal economy in our country is big and there is no reason to consider that we cannot collect more revenues than the ones provided for in the budget. As successful measures contributing to the better collection he points to the work of the Fiscal Control in the NRA, the better coordination between the services and the clear political will that the systems in this field should work better.

The Finance Minister announced that the MoF had made considerable progress in the realization of the concept for the establishment of the so called tax police. "We will give the NRA investigative functions similar to what has been done in the Customs Agency. This is an old concept for which I enjoy understanding within the Government and the parties supporting it", Goranov said. He expressed his conviction that this time the process would be brought to successful end within a short period of time. "This should reduce VAT fraud and should lead to effective verdicts in the cases of tax fraud schemes", Goranov argued.

The Minister is of the opinion that the forecast for 2.1% growth is realistic, even there are grounds for better results and our country to attain higher growth than the forecasted by the international institutions; growth that will be also sustainable.

Asked to comment the recently published by the EC report on Bulgaria's macroeconomic imbalances Vladislav Goranov said that in that report they were neither directly linked with the fisc, nor with the financial system, but the problems with the work of the judiciary, corruption and insolvency procedures remained and our country should continue its efforts to overcome them.  

In reply to the question about the external debt issue under preparation Minister Goranov announced that most probably there would be no need for a proper road show and that there might be several conference calls with investors because "our country has already several benchmark issues that are sufficiently large to be liquid and to serve as a reference point, and we are monitored and recognizable in the market".

On the topical theme, related to the political decision in the past month to stop a number of public procurements the Finance Minister commented before Capital daily that the introduction of ex-ante control to be performed by the Public Procurement Agency was among the positive amendments to the Public Procurement Law. This will be an instrument that would guarantee at the very preparatory period the elimination of any possibilities for distortion of competition. The Minister also recalled the leading role of the contracting authority in the period of planning and organization because it had the responsibility for the spending of funds, either from the state budget or from the European Funds. Minister Goranov shared his belief that he would like public expenditure to be more meaningful and investments to be focused on growth instead of being used for routine spending or financing of administrative units.