During the period April 13th-15th, 2021, the Bulgarian Industrial Association conducted an express online survey among its members from all over the country and all sectors of the economy. The largest percentage of participants (28.6%) stems from the hotel, restaurant, and travel agency sectors.
The survey shows that 54% of respondents expect to experience difficulties repaying their bank debts after the expiration of the bank moratorium.
79% of the respondents report deteriorating economic indicators in their enterprises. Half of the participants in the survey (50.6%) predict that they will be able to restore their economic condition by the end of 2022, and 18.3% - by the end of this year. 26.1% have a rather distant prognosis- after 2022, and 0.4% declare that they have ceased their operations, respectively - will not recover.
74% of respondents rely on state measures to support employment, and 68% need liquidity support, incl. for 12 months (47.3%), for 6 months (14.9%), for 3 months (2.9%) or for a period longer than a year (1.7%).
The last question of the survey provided the participants the opportunity to share their suggestions for improving the state support toward the companies. Some of the proposals are aimed at speeding up the process and reducing the bureaucracy, postponing/clearing local taxes and fees, maintaining the lower VAT rate for the restaurant industry. Many respondents expect the existing measures to be extended and make specific proposals to change their design so that a wider range of companies can benefit from them. Other proposals are also the analyses of the anti-epidemic measures applied so far and anti-crisis compensations of the companies, less state intervention in the business, and equal treatment of the separate sectors when applying restrictions.
