THE outgoing Simeon Saxe-Coburg Cabinet decided on June 23 to support the Bulgarian Olympic Committee in its bid to bring the 2014 Winter Olympics to Sofia.
"We have about a month to prepare the needed documents together with our Olympic committee," Sport and Youth Minister Vassil Ivanov told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.
The bid, signed by Sofia's mayor, will be filed with the International Olympic Committee IOC by the July 28 deadline.
Six other countries have expressed an interest in staging the 2014 games, among them South Korea, Austria, Sweden, China and Georgia. 
Sofia failed in bids to host the Winter Olympics in bids for both 1992 and 1994. One of the main impediments this time, according to domestic and international observers, is the expected suspension from the IOC of Bulgarian Olympic Committee president Ivan Slavkov.
Slavkov's membership will be the subject of a vote at a full session in Singapore this month after the IOC's Executive Board recommended his expulsion for breaking rules of ethics and "tarnishing the reputation of the IOC".
A BBC report in August 2004 showed Slavkov and Serbian sports agent Goran Takach discussing illegal ways to secure votes for choosing the site of the 2012 Summer Games with undercover journalists posing as businesspeople.
These concerns aside, Ivanov said, "Slavkov's case with the IOC will in no way affect Sofia's Olympic bid."
State authorities and other Sofia 2014 supporters seem to agree. Bulgaria has developed its winter resorts in the past few years in order to prepare for the bid, and is set to see even more improvements.  Even if the country is unsuccessful in getting the Olympics, its bid will have helped build some high-end winter resorts.
Bulgaria will offer Sofia, the winter resort in Mount Vitosha, Borovets in Rila Mountain and Bansko in Pirin to host the Games from February 10 through February 26, 2014.
While the Vitosha winter resort still needs improvements, Borovets and Bansko are already well-developed winter resorts and attract a large number of foreign tourists. More investment and improvements are still planned for the two resorts.
In May, the Cabinet decided the state would spend 150 million leva on the construction of the so-called "Super Borovets" resort. Private investors are expected to inject a further 300 million euro into tourist infrastructure, lifts and ski-runs.
A new 10-year plan to develop Borovets has set out three stages for the resort's improvement.
The first stage hopes to double the resort's occupancy rate by 2007.
Tourist facilities in the area incorporating Beli Iskur, Samokov and Borovets will be built during the second stage, after meeting such issues as the environmental impact and spatial development.
The third stage envisions the construction of facilities at an altitude of 1400 m on the mountain. 
At the moment Borovets has 38 hotels and villas with a total of 5500 beds. Most of the ski-runs were built in the late 1970s and, according to the standards of the time, are 30 metres wide. In order to meet modern requirements, they must be widened. 
At 1350 m above sea level, with ski tracks at 2600 m, Borovets is the oldest international, and, so far, the most popular, mountain resort in Bulgaria. 
Usually the slopes of Borovets are covered in snow from mid-December until April, which make them excellent for the games.  
A total of 70 new facilities, among them 10 new hotels, opened in Bansko last year. The town is developing rapidly and will see more construction in the next few years.