At a news conference on October 26 2007, the Institute for Market Economy (IME) showcased the findings from a survey, scrutinising the existing building permit issue procedure and issued recommendations for its improvement.

The Democratic Commission of the US Embassy in Bulgaria financed the project aimed at enhancing transparency and efficiency at municipalities and at eradicating corruption, as well as optimising permit issue expenditures, IME head Svetla Kostadinova said.

At present, the main stumbling blocks in the development of an efficient building permit procedure were deficiencies in the Territorial Development Act with regard to steps a would-be developer needed to go through and the related lack of transparency in paperwork to be submitted.

In addition to the extensive red tape, IME experts voiced business' woes related to inefficient performance of local administration.
On scrutiny of failings in the existing procedure together with the analysis of best practises worldwide, the IME has come up with four main recommendations on ways to improve the building permit issue procedure.

The institute offers to trim the number of project categories, perfect the main features of a detailed territorial development plan with a view of lessening requirements on parcel size, cut the number of permissions at the project development stage and the transfer of project assessment from the municipality to private consultancies.