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"At the moment, the business crisis is bigger than during the pandemic. That's when we lost our trained staff. Now we work with staff from abroad, which is not the best."

This was commented to BTV by the co-chairman of the Association of Restaurants, Richard Alibegov.

He added that in the current situation, if the 9% VAT had not been maintained for the restaurant industry, bankruptcies would have followed.

"So far we have a three and a half times increase in spending.

People felt the inflation.

It reached almost 20% in some places, according to official statistics, and in the small consumer basket it was much higher," Alibegov explained.

He added that since the beginning of the year there have been 3 wage increases in Brasna.

"Our problem is the lack of personnel.

There are probably larger enterprises where up to 20% foreign workers are employed.

They go through companies, we engage them from different countries.

This is a trend that will most likely continue, as our trained personnel left during the pandemic," Alibegov explained. 

The establishments insist that the 9% VAT will remain next year as well

He also commented on the minimum wage, which he has an idea to make 50% of the average.

According to him, this will give people some peace of mind.

The economic expert at KNSB Lyuboslav Kostov stated that it is not possible to talk about a fixed minimum wage by region.

"There should definitely be a national minimum wage, if there will be one for economic activities, but it must be in some coefficient of this national minimum wage.

There is no way by region, as Bulgaria is a very small country.

In places, the market economy has been called into question,” he said.