The Bulgarian government will be injecting BGN 4.5bn into the economy to help support small and medium-sized businesses, self-employed people and people who can’t work because of pandemic-related restrictions. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said the first measure was being directed at self-insured people who couldn’t work because of the crisis or who had suffered at least a 20 percent drop in income. These people will be entitled to apply for interest-free loans of up to BGN 4,500. The second program are unsecured loans from commercial banks of up to BGN 300,000 to boost the liquidity of small and medium-sized enterprises. Goranov predicted that up to BGN 2bn could be loaned using this instrument. The European Investment Fund will also be working with partner banks like UBB, ProCredit Bank and Unicredit Bulbank, to refinance liabilities of SMEs that arose no more than 60 days ago.
