In Bulgaria we focus on:
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Enhancing Competitiveness through Improved Efficiency, Governance and Innovation. The Bank will support financial restructurings and provide long term finance for competitiveness enhancement, and energy efficiency investments as well as support regional economic integration by providing financing for cross-border investments and exports. For smaller companies, the Bank will work with and through financial intermediaries to ensure sufficient access to funds and explore expanding its business advisory activities.
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Strengthen the financial sector intermediation through targeted investments and improved governance. The Bank will explore risk sharing products in order to support overall intermediation and in particular MSME development as well support sector consolidation. The Bank will also seek to support the deposit insurance fund with a combination of investment and policy dialogue.
- Narrowing the Infrastructure Gap through Commercialisation, Reform and Efficiency. The Bank will seek to support commercialisation and private sector participation in transport, gas and municipal infrastructure, including by working with the authorities to facilitate leveraging of available EU structural funds. In the energy sector, the Bank is ready to renew its dialogue with the authorities with the view to support the energy sector reform strategy and would provide investments to support public utilities financial and operational performance, while continuing energy efficiency investment across the economy.
The EBRD’s latest strategy for Bulgaria was adopted on 8 July 2015
- EBRD's latest Bulgaria strategy
- EBRD’s latest Bulgaria strategy in Bulgarian
- Report on the invitation to the public to comment on the Bulgaria strategy
EBRD forecast for Bulgaria’s real GDP growth in 2018 3.6%
EBRD forecast for Bulgaria's real GDP growth in 2019 3.4%
The Bulgarian economy has been growing robustly at 3.8 per cent in 2017 and 3.4 per cent in the first half of 2018. Household consumption has been the main source of growth over this period, driven by a tightening labour market. Growth was also supported by rising investment, helped by the growing disbursement of EU funds since the second half of 2017. Meanwhile, net exports have weighed on growth as strong private consumption has pushed up imports. Government spending has remained constrained as the government posted a budget surplus in 2017 and in the first three quarters of 2018.
