The first signs of recovery of the Bulgarian economy were noticed in the first quarter of the year, when the Ministry of Finance announced a rise of over 400 million euros in public revenues compared to the same period last year. Shortly after that export data regarding major trading partners of Bulgaria in the European Union also confirmed the upward trend. To these positive signals one may add unemployment, which has registered a slight decline.

Against this backdrop there was a logical revision of the medium-term macroeconomic forecast of the Ministry of Finance.

At the end of last year, at the time when the 2015 budget of the country was adopted, expectations of governmental experts for the economic development of the country this year were far from optimistic and well below the real growth rate achieved in 2014. Then expectations were that Bulgarian economy in 2015 will grow by 0.8 percent. Now the government expects a growth of 1.4 percent, despite the fact the trend of deflation continues and it is expected to remain about 1 percent. Experts say that the favourable external environment will result in an increase in exports of goods and services, which together with the increase in domestic demand will lead to accelerating growth and imports.

In reality, the situation is not so perfect, as the 2014 growth of 1.7 percent will not be achieved. The Ministry of Finance predicts that this rate will be registered next year, but a more significant rise of the Bulgarian economy could be marked in 2017. Whether this will happen in practice is yet to be seen, as this depends on a number of internal and international political and economic factors. The number of variables is big but the result is to be positive. The forecasts of international analysts of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission are much more cautious and conservative. It is not yet clear who would be right but in the past few years Bulgaria has shown that the development of its economy is difficult to predict and it often brings positive surprises.

English: Alexander Markov