Bulgaria has attracted foreign direct investments (FDI) worth 9 bln US dollars for the past two years. This is a little more than the total volume of investments in Bulgaria for the past 15 years, Stoyan Stalev, CEO of InvestBulgaria Agency, said at the second round table on Bulgaria’s investment climate and the effect of this country’s EU membership on local investment process.

The ratio between FDI and GDP was 15.5% in 2006 according to Bank-Austria data and 16.6% according to BNB data, Stalev said.

Thus Bulgaria ranks on one of the leading positions among the countries from Central and Eastern Bulgaria.

Bulgaria’s minister of economy and energy Rumen Ovcharov expressed the government’s will to continue to work on the establishment of the best possible business, financial and economic environment in Bulgaria with a view of the tax and insurance burden and general financial and economic conditions, noting there were not much left reserves in this sphere.

At the current level of corporate tax there was hardly any logic to cut it any further, Ovcharov said. The government would continue to implement reforms in income taxation, the social security burden and the improvement of business climate, the minister added.

Another ambition of the government was to improve the regulation of business in Bulgaria and to work for the equal treatment of all business representatives in Bulgaria, both by the administrative and by the legal system.