site.btaDeputy Prime Minister Donchev Warns against Treating Public Financing As "Cure-all"

108 POLITICS-REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT-FORUM

Deputy Prime Minister Donchev Warns against
Treating Public Financing
As "Cure-all"


June 21 (BTA) - Speaking during a conference entitled, "Business and Regions" on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev warned against treating public financing as "a remedy for all ills". Donchev spoke against opting for projects and initiatives which will require public funding in the next decade. Instead, ways should be found to reverse this, because excessive centralization is one of the characteristics of a poorly developed state, he argued.

Noting that transport connectivity ensures good development prospects, Donchev said that the big problem is the uneven development of the transport network in Bulgaria. He said that the issue will be solved soon as "this is a commitment of the State".

Speaking about the infrastructure for innovations, Donchev criticized the model where research equipment is purchased for millions of leva only "on academic whim of a handful of researchers". "This is very expensive. If such equipment does not produce effects for the economy, if local engineers, owners, producers cannot use laboratory equipment for tests and checks, there is not point of having it," he said.

Donchev said that an important question that requires discussion is capacity development at the regional level. In his words, the regional administrations have a legal duty to identify local problems that sometimes remain undetected by the State but in reality they do not have either the capacity, the money or the expertise to do this. IG/ZH
/СН/