site.btaFinance Minister Vassilev Expects Business Environment to Remain Inflationary

The business environment will remain inflationary, the war "will be with us" for at least three to five years and people will learn to live with these circumstances; what is important at the moment is to thwart the political and economic attacks against Europe, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev said Tuesday, speaking at the 13th edition of the Money Talks event which opened in Sofia. 

"Failure to act quickly will lead to serious problems related to serious increases of the price of energy resources and of food," Vassilev said. 

The Finance Minister said that at the EU level, coordination has started regarding purchase of natural gas. Work is proceeding on diversification of sources and on ensuring the transmission infrastructure. Bulgaria can use its communist-time gas transmission network with which 20 billion cu m of gas can be transited from south to north. Of this quantity, Bulgaria will need no more than two billion cu m, Vassilev said. 

He said that Bulgaria could reap benefits from the grain crisis as well. Last year this country's harvest was seven million tonnes, five million tonnes of which were for export, Vassilev said. 

He warned that if Europe does not intervene to solve problems with deliveries and food prices, the grain will go to China while Europe will have expensive foods and a refugee crisis. 

Vassilev argued that the Bulgarian economy is not expected to go in stagflation as predicted by the economists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on Monday. In Vassilev's words, "the inflation is mainly 'exported', with natural gas, oil and grain".