13.07.2012

Bulgaria has no plans to tap international markets again for the next couple of years, Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov said for Reuters and Bloomberg after his participation in the Conference \"The Way Forward: Central, Eastern, & Southeastern Europe\" in Vienna. The event was organized by the Joint Vienna Institute and co-sponsored by the Austrian Ministry of Finance, the IMF and the Austrian Central Bank. He added that the economy would probably grow 1.4 per cent this year and the expansion would help cut the budget deficit below the targeted 1.3 per cent of GDP. Simeon Djankov commented that at the moment the 2012 budget was balanced and there was even a small surplus.

Even as Bulgaria currently meets all numerical criteria for adopting the euro, the country will \"not make any move\" toward the switchover in the next two years, the Finance Minister said. I don\'t think that Bulgaria has any interest in doing this move at the moment. There is too much uncertainty. We have no interest to hurry because of the potential negative effects. Therefore we will wait until the situation calms down, the Finance Minister added.