Bulgaria’s financial and academic elite gathered in the Aula Maxima of the University of National and World Economy, to discuss the most sensitive issues, linked to this country’s accession to the Eurozone. The Euro Days at the UNWE are being held on 5 and 6 November, and are being organized jointly with the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) and the UNWE’s Institute of Policy and Economics. The conference and the two discussion panels involved as participants Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov, UNWE Rector, Marnix van Rij, Deputy Executive Director of the Dutch-Belgian constituency at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Assoc. Prof. Petar Chobanov, Deputy Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), Velislava Delcheva, Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria, Zornitsa Rusinova, Chairman of the Economic and Social Council, executive directors of Bulgarian commercial banks and experts.

„My forecast is that there will be no substantial changes in the interest rate policy of commercial banks, in the short run. It is being predetermined by the structure of assets and liabilities in the banking system, where there is high liquidity and the loans to deposits ratio is one of the lowest in Europe and will be the lowest in the Eurozone. Apart from this liquidity surplus, the disposable assets of commercial banks will be topped up with another 11%, out of those currently 12% reserves with the Central Bank, which will be released and a larger part of those will be available to be used for lending, too. In long term perspective interest rates will be synchronized with those in the Eurozone, with the question being the direction in which this is going to happen. By joining the Eurozone, we become subject of the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the decisions that are being made will also gradually have impact on the situation here .“, shared Teodor Marinov, Chief Financial Officer of UBB.

He was part of the first discussion panel at the CEO Talks conference, where executive directors of leading Bulgarian banks spoke about the readiness of Bulgaria and its banking system for adopting the euro. In his opinion, inflation in Bulgaria was being influenced by factors that had nothing to do with the adoption of the common currency, however, were being attributed to it: a stance, also supported in their statements by the other participants in the panel and in the conference. In an answer to a student’s question about the connection between inflation and income growth, he stated that there had not been such historical precedent in an economy of inflation below 2% upon a two-digit growth in the average remuneration and it was not fair to blame it on euro adoption. As another factor influencing the higher inflation, he pointed out the pro-inflationary attitudes and expectations of consumers and of businesses, by forecasting that the effect from such behaviour would fade away after the first months of adopting the new currency in Bulgaria.

The Euro Days at the UNWE continue also on 6-th November with a public lecture of Assoc. Prof. Petar Chobanov, Deputy Governor of the BNB and lecturer at the UNWE.