Parliament approved National Budget 2002 Act on December 4.
Finance Minister Milen Velchev thanked to those who have contributed to the Act, which he described as "a high-quality document."
Revenues of 6,981,918,700 BGN, expenditures of 7, 528, 130, 900 BGN and deficit of 546, 212, 200 BGN are set up in Bulgaria’s budget for 2002 according to approved at second reading text from budget bill 2002. Expected tax revenues are of 5, 450, 463, 100 BGN, revenues of profit tax are 464, 992, 600 BGN, personal tax revenues are 557, 359, 500 BGN, VAT revenues are 2, 779, 816, 000 BGN. Expected revenues from duties and customs’ fees are 100, 000, 000 BGN, from excise duties and road fees – 1, 379, 721, 800 BGN. Non-tax revenues are 1, 531, 455, 700. The envisaged running revenues are 4, 592, 006, 200 BGN, capital expenditures are 545, 660, 000 BGN, the reserve for unpredicted and urgent expenditures is 139, 400, 000 BGN.
BGN 187 will be the minimum salary for state employees, starting from January 1, 2002; BGN 196 will be the minimum salary starting from July 1, 2002.
Parliament obliged the Sofia Municipal Council to allocate BGN 97 M in the 2002 budget of Sofia Municipality for redemption of a 1999 Eurobond issue. The money will come from the municipal tax paid in 2001 by the Bank Consolidation Company, which is not shown in this year's budget projection.
Legal non-profit entities will be granted BGN 2.966 M subsidies from the budget in 2002. Parliament adopted this text of the budget bill on second reading on December 14. The list of the recipients and the distribution of the subsidies among them will be adopted as a supplementation to the law. The draft includes 22 organizations such as the Bulgarian Red Cross, the Union of Handicapped, the Union of Blind, the Bulgarian Tourist Union, the Union of Bulgarian Drivers.
BGN 594,405,400 subsidies will be granted to municipalities next year. The provided general subsidy to municipalities amounts to BGN 366,562,400, the target subsidy for social aids – to BGN 153,399,800, the target subsidy for capital costs – to BGN 135,000,000 and contributions to the central budget – to BGN 222,374,500 /the net contributions amount to BGN 161,817,700. The subsidies to municipalities are set at 90% of their amount, with the exception of the subsidies for social aids. The remaining 10% will be extended only if the budget deficit is not exceeded.
Parliament approved the budgets of the Bulgarian National Radio and Bulgarian National Television - 31, 888, 000 and 40, 826,000 respectively – during its session on December 14. The
MPs voted for a distribution system of the income tax – 50% will go to the municipalities budgets and 50 % - to the central budget.
The Ministry of Finance plans to start discussions on budget 2003 at the beginning of 2002, Finance minister Milen Velchev announced at Parliament on December 14. He said amendments to the procedure were under way so that next year it will be more transparent. Some of them will allow more time to be spent on analyzing the ways the amount of money to be spent. According to Minister Velchev the focus should be not on the amount of money itself, but on the way they are spent.
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