site.bta580-Plus Companies Are Partly or Wholly Owned by Municipalities

Information on commercial companies and enterprises owned by Bulgarian municipalities was published by the Institute for Market Economics (IME) on Tuesday.
The database showed information about commercial companies with up to 100% municipal capital participation, as well as for established municipal enterprises.

Financial indicators for 2020 and 2021 were presented, as well as data on the number of people employed, the main subject of activity by industry, the size of their assets, etc., IME said.

The information was collected through applications for access to public information sent to the municipalities and supplemented by a review of publicly accessible registers such as the Commercial Register, Bulstat Register and public registers of the municipalities.

According to the data, municipalities participated in the capital of more than 580 commercial companies. There are over 260 municipal enterprises established under the Municipal Property Act. The total assets of commercial companies exceed BGN 7 billion, and their employees are over 36.7 thousand. The data shows that about two-thirds of companies reported a profit in 2021. The total expenses of the municipal enterprises during this period were over BGN 254 million, and they employed 14.4 thousand people. It is also noted that the activities of commercial companies and municipal enterprises cover almost the entire spectrum of economic sectors, as they dominate in healthcare, plumbing services, transport and cleaning services. Individual municipalities own small shares in joint-stock companies such as banks, gas transmission networks, commodity exchanges, sports teams.

The analysis was prepared under an IME project on "Municipal companies in action - inventory, analysis and recommendations for better management" within the Good Governance Operational Programme.