Bulgaria’s economy will worsen even further in the next 12 months, more than half of those polled in a Gallup International opinion survey said, according to media reports on March 1 2010.
 
The poll is the latest in a series of separate surveys exposing worries about a worsening economy, job losses and diminished spending power in Bulgaria - with the only bright note being that most Bulgarians believe that the current Government is serious about fighting crime.
 
The Gallup poll found that confidence in Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s Cabinet was, at 39 per cent, three per cent lower in February than in January, although Borissov continued to be the most popular politician in the country.
 
In second place was Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who is Deputy Prime Minister, Interior Minister and deputy leader of Borissov’s party GERB; followed by President Georgi Purvanov, European Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva, and fifth, former European Commissioner Meglena Kouneva.
 
Another poll, by the Pragmatika Marketing Agency, found that the number of Bulgarians who said that they had been hard-hit by the economic crisis had doubled in the past year to 60 per cent.
 
According to the poll, reported by Bulgarian National Radio, public opinions about Bulgaria emerging from the crisis were largely pessimistic, with just less than 25 per cent believing that economic recovery would take up to two years, while 20 per cent believed that recovery would come at the end of 2010 or in early 2011.
 
Bulgarians polled by Pragmatika said that they had cut back spending because of the crisis, with a third saying that they were now spending less on food, heating and electricity.
 
On February 25, financial daily Pari said that company managers expected an economic upturn no earlier than September 2010, even though the Government expectation is of a recovery beginning in May this year.
 
On February 22, Dnevnik, quoting Bulgarian polling agency Alpha Research, said that the dire situation on the job front was stoking fears of job losses and shrinking incomes.
 
Bulgaria’s composite business climate index for February 2010 showed no significant change from January, the National Statistical Institute said on February 26, although the business climate indicator for industry showed a slight improvement.
 
Managers continued to report a decrease in production activity and deteriorating demand both in Bulgaria and abroad, and expected to unemployment to worsen, but at a slower pace, according to the survey, quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA.
 
A separate poll, by the National Centre for Public Opinion Surveys, found that there was some optimism about the effect that the Borissov Government’s operations against crime would have a positive effect on Bulgaria’s image abroad.
 
More than two-thirds of the country’s urban population believed that the recent anti-crime operations would restore international trust in the country, the poll said, according to a February 28 report by Bulgarian National Radio.
 
Seventy-one per cent believed that the Borissov Government had a strong will to fight crime, the poll said, a figure considerably higher than polls had shown about opinions about the previous government’s willingness to combat crime.