- Political stability
- Fiscal affairs
- Monetary policy
- Regulated markets
- Privatisation
- Macroeconomic developments
submited on 23.01.2013 in category Regulated markets | Fiscal affairs | Privatisation | Political stability | Monetary policy | Macroeconomic developments
Bulgaria has improved is budget transparency according to the "open budget" index for 2012. By nine points - from 56 in 2010 to 65 in 2012 increased the assessment of Bulgaria and the country moves from third to second group (the 100 countries surveyed in the world are divided into 5 groups as the best examples are in the first group and the worst are in the fifth group).
Since 2006, when he published the first index, the assessment of Bulgaria has improved immensely - from 47 in 2006 to 65 in 2012 (absolute maximum is 100). The improvement is due to the publication of more budget information, incl. on the draft budget, the adopted budget, monthly and semi-annual reports and annual audit reports.
However, Bulgaria still has not reached the best examples of budget transparency - New Zealand is a leader in the world with a score 93 out of 100, and in Europe leaders are the UK (88 100), Sweden (84 of 100), Norway and France (83 of 100). These countries are from the first group, which give the public "comprehensive" information on the budget, while Bulgaria provides "significant" information and is therefore in the second group. In the region, Bulgaria is before Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania, but lags behind the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.
Bulgaria has a strong role of the National Audit Office, but needs greater parliamentary oversight of the budget, including the establishment of a specialized unit for budget analysis. The country also should expand public participation in the budget process, including through further consultation and discussion. Other recommendations relate to publishing more information and more detailed data on the budget, including a short budget (citizens budget), data on non-financial assets and contingent liabilities, costs of tax incentives, analyses of the effects of different macroeconomic assumptions for the budget (sensitivity analysis), more details on the planned income and expenditure in the medium term, higher-quality data to assess the performance of program budgets, greater range of the semi-annual and annual report.
"The budget decisions and the processes to achieve them, are crucial for addressing many of the most pressing global problems," said Warren Krawczyk, director of the International Budget Partnership, "as Bulgaria and countries with greater transparency have taken many steps to improve, but progress must continue, as other countries are also expected to progress. "
Compared with the publication of the index in 2010, the average global index increased slightly - from 43 to 45 points. The greatest improvement was observed in the countries with the lowest transparency (40 points) – from 19 to 26 on average. For some of these countries - such as Honduras, Afghanistan, and French-speaking countries of West Africa – this is a "jump" from virtually no transparency to the average index values comparable to those in Eastern Europe from several years ago.
However, the index takes into account a number of difficulties. Most countries increased transparency are among those with very low initial values. Despite the above mentioned success stories, some countries - Egypt, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Zambia – have lowered their score by more than 15 points since the last edition of the index two years ago. Half of the 60 countries which in 2008 reported "some transparency" (in the middle of the ranking), have remained in this group or worsened access to fiscal information.
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The Open Budget Index is the only international independent comparative study of budgetary transparency and is prepared by the International Budget Partnership (www.internationalbudget.org). The data for each country are provided by independent research organizations (Industry Watch for Bulgaria) and confirmed by independent experts.
In 2012, it includes 100 countries with a combined population of 6.1 billion people (89% of the world population) and assess the extent to which governments provide the public with timely and detailed information on the budget. The maximum score is 100. The index is available at www.openbudgetindex.org.
In 2013 Industry Watch will work for 10th year in favor of the Bulgarian business. And the world, Europe and Bulgaria will enter the 5th year of the global financial crisis. The dynamics of the economies, however, is diverse - some countries are just initiating the necessary reforms, others quickly adapted. In this situation, the recovery in Bulgaria continues to depend on foreign investment, the stability of the financial sector, reforms in public services, the flexibility of export-oriented production, income and household behavior.
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