site.btaFuel Traders Ready to Protest Against New Regulative Act

January 7 (BTA) - The National Association of Fuel
Traders and Carriers is ready to organize national protests
against the implementation of the Act on Administrative
Regulation of Economic Activities related to Oil and Petroleum
Products, member of the association's Board of Directors Plamen
Stoyanov said on Monday in BTA National Pressclub.

The act was adopted by the National Assembly at the end of July
2018, but it will come into force on January 28, 2019. It will
require higher capital and financial guarantees for fuel
traders.

Simo Simov, the association's speaker, said the new act would
lead to monopolizing the fuel sector. "This will bring about
increased prices and hundreds of bankrupt companies, and at
least 2,000 workplaces in small gas stations and propane butane
filling stations will be lost," he noted.

The association describes the Fuel Act as anti-constitutional,
lobbyist and corrupt, and demands that the President and MPs
repeal it.

Simov noted that instead of fighting grey economy, the act
favours some private traders at the expense of others. According
 to him, the grey economy, valued at one billion leva yearly,
participates in the fuel sector through illegal import or
ficticious export. "We neither produce, nor export fuels, so the
 grey economy cannot originate from us," he commented.

"We asked the Customs Agency to provide us with data on the
Neftochim Bourgas Refinery trading operations and we found out
it has been exporting fuels to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Irak and
Quatar," Simov said, adding that he is ready to share the
information and its analysis with the Prosecutor's Office and
the media. RY/TH