Bulgaria's Bond Sales Plan Causes No Concern - EU Budget Commissioner Georgieva

The European Commission isn’t concerned by Bulgaria’s decision to issue up to 16 billion levs (8 billion euros) in new debt, Commission Vice-President for Budget and Human Resources said on Sunday.

Bulgaria’s debt-to-GDP ratio is about 27% which indicates the debt level is low, BGNES news outlet quoted Georgieva as saying.

At that ratio Bulgaria is one of the least indebted countries in the EU-28.

Last month Bulgaria's parliament approved a government plan to raise 8 billion euros of new debt through overseas bond sales over three years to roll over old debt and finance budget deficit. The minority coalition cabinet led by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov aims to raise 3.5 billion euros in 2015 under the plan. Moody's provisionally rated the bond issue programme as Baa2, which is a medium grade investment rating, with moderate credit risk.

According to Georgieva, it’s highly important for what purposes the government will use the portion of proceeds from bond sales that will not be used to pay maturing debt.

Those fresh funds should be channeled into Bulgaria’s economy to boost growth which is still slow, Georgieva opined.