Dessislava Taneva will be handed the agriculture portfolio in the next cabinet, prime minister designate Boiko Borissov said during a meeting with the Grain Producers Association on July 21 2009, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily said.

Taneva (37) comes from the private sector, where she is executive director of Agricultural Land Fund Mel Invest. She was elected to Parliament at the July 5 2009 elections on the ticket of Borissov's party GERB. Before that, she was chairperson of the municipal council in the central Bulgarian town of Sliven.

Miroslav Naidenov, who was also touted by the media for the job, will head Parliament's forestry and agriculture committee, Borissov said.

Taneva is the seventh name on his Borissov's list of ministerial appointments that he has revealed to the media and it comes two days before the deadline on which he is to present President Georgi Purvanov with the full cabinet line-up.

They are World Bank economist Simeon Dyankov, who will be finance minister; GERB parliamentary floor leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who will be interior ninister; former GERB MEP Nikolai Mladenov will be defence minister; prosecutor Margarita Popova will be justice minister; Borissov's deputy at Sofia city hall, Yordanka Fundukova who will get the education portfolio; and prominent sculptor Vezhdi Rashidov will be culture minister.

Parliament is expected to vote the formal resignation of the outgoing Cabinet of Socialist Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev on July 22 2009. The new cabinet is expected to be approved by Parliament on July 27 2009.