The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bulgarian Cabinet are maintaining different positions on Budget spending. This became clear on Tuesday, the last day of a visit by IMF mission head for Bulgaria Hans Flickenschield. Petar Dimitrov, head of the parliamentary committee on the budget, said that even if there are changes to the national financial framework, the budget is expected to remain balanced, mediapool.bg reported.
Dimitrov said that the IMF demands for national expenditure below 40 per cent of the GDP were too limiting. The IMF is getting involved due to the inability of the Bulgarian Government to implement new financial measures. It will be difficult, however to reduce expenses further, Dimitrov said. He said that it had become clear that IMF was not demanding that the National Revenue Agency starts operations at the beginning of next year. The draft taxation and social securities code, however, has to be accepted as soon as possible.