One hundred days into the term of Boiko Borissov's Cabinet, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov pinpointed 10 areas that the Government would focus on in "the next 100 days".

Speaking at the fourth annual meeting of Government and business organised by Kapital weekly and the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, Dyankov said that the immediate priority was to adopt a balanced Budget for 2010 and balancing the books on this year's Budget. The ultimate goal was to join as soon as possible the eurozone, he said.

Increased revenue and spending cuts generated a Budget surplus in October, which should give foreign investors and international financial institutions a sign that the fiscal policies of the new Government were yielding results, Dyankov said. Albeit it was a small success, it was proof of the political will to pursue prudent policies, he said.

The October surplus was the first result of increased revenue collection that followed the linking of the databases of the National Revenue Agency and the Customs Agency. But smuggling in Bulgaria was "huge" and an ongoing struggle that the Cabinet would pursue, even though it would take much longer than 100 days, he said.

Public administration reforms would continue beyond the 15 per cent cut in personnel, Dyankov said. The focus will be on "functional analysis", meant to identify areas that needed strengthening, such as auditing and EU funds management, but also which institutions were redundant or could be merged to increase efficiency, he said.

Another area in need of a complete overhaul was the management of state property, given that the state has not shown itself to be a good manager so far, Dyankov said. Worse yet, often the state hampered the private sector, as was the case of public tenders won by state-owned firms. The Public Procurement Act, which has often come under criticism for numerous loopholes, would be amended, with a bill to be presented to Parliament within the next 100 days, he said.

The way that previous government spent taxpayers' money was far from transparent and some contracts, including privatisation and concession, were not available for review by the National Audit Office. Increased transparency would be pursued by making more information available to the public, starting with the Finance Ministry, Dyankov said.

Beyond reducing the mandatory social security contributions by two percentage points next year, the ministry was working on proposals to further reduce the burden on businesses, including quicker ammortisation of certain types of assets and a "golden register" of firms that would enjoy faster value-added tax refunds.

Health care reform was another area were little results for the Cabinet to show for its work, but within the next 100 days the Cabinet would table its amendments to the existing legislative framework, Dyankov said.