site.bta World Bank Offers Help to Boost SMEs, Innovation in Bulgaria

World Bank Offers Help to Boost SMEs, Innovation in Bulgaria

Sofia, December 15 (BTA) - Meeting with World Bank Country
Manager for Bulgaria Tony Thompson on Monday, Economy Minister
Bozhidar Loukarski said that one of the priorities of the
Bulgarian government is to provide an efficient legal framework
and support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to
expand into new markets, the Economy Ministry reported.
Loukarski noted that the Ministry's potential cooperation with
the World Bank can speed up targeted national reforms.

He said it is his personal priority to reduce the administrative
 burden on SMEs and help them come out into non-EU markets by
establishing business clusters. This will boost the Bulgarian
economy and make it more competitive, he reasoned.

Loukarski and Thompson discussed three areas of potential
cooperation between Bulgaria and the World Bank in order to
improve the business environment in the country: streamlining
business-related legislation, planning measures to promote
innovation, and ensuring fair competition.

Thompson acknowledged that the Bulgarian government has many
initiatives to boost innovation, but he said that sometimes they
 are implemented separately, so it is necessary to pool
everybody's efforts in order to achieve better results. Thompson
 added that the World Bank can provide analysis and consulting
services to the Economy Ministry in the field of innovation in
order to encourage economic growth.

Another proposal was that the Economy Ministry and the World
Bank's business team should work together to improve the
country's "ease of doing business" ranking compiled by the Bank
under its Doing Business project.

The sides concurred that cooperation between the Ministry and
the Bank can help Bulgaria absorb EU aid.