Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Lidia Shuleva and Jerald Schiff, Head of the IMF mission to Bulgaria discussed the Bulgarian social policy on October 24. The doubled amount of child benefits, tax preferences for employers creating jobs for the long-term unemployed and the structural adjustment of the public-financed sphere were the topics of discussion. Most probably the patent tax for each additional employee will not be introduced. At the meeting, Shuleva proposed tax concessions for employers who hire people who have been unemployed for long time. Schiff reacted positively to this proposal and saw it as a chance to help the long-term unemployed find work and as a fine incentive for employers to hire people from this group. Shuleva announced that there are no disagreements for the increase of the state salaries with 10% in 2002 and of the pensions with 6%. The child benefits will be doubled and will be granted according to a differentiation method. At the moment a statistical survey is made that will distribute the children in the country according to their families` revenues. `There will be a border –limit that will be probably arguable. Still, we have to consider the reality in Bulgaria,` the Social Minister commented. Shuleva denied that unemployment will be rising. `The National Employment Service puts the unemployment rate now at 16.2% of the labour force, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) uses a different method to calculate it,` she specified.She recalled that the Social Ministry negotiates with the World Bank a loan of USD 330,000 that will be used for the establishment of methods for estimating the poverty line in Bulgaria and the setting up of an institutionalized infrastructure in the National Statistical Institute. Shuleva will have conclusive meeting with Schiff on October 26 again.

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