Bulgaria's Finance Ministry is not likely at this point to heed calls for the reduction of the excise duty on natural gas, newspaper Capital Daily reported on Thursday, quoting sources close to the incumbents.
The proposal to lower the excise duty was made by the Bulgarian Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers as part of a package of anti-crisis measures. The move was motivated by forecasts that production volumes at Federation members from the heavy industry are expected to contract 30-40% in 2012, bringing back memories of the 2008 crisis.
In view of these conditions, the Federation had suggested that the full excise rate start to be enforced in early 2014.
According to Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov, the idea behind hiking the excise rate now is that if this unpopular measure is put off it would have to be done by the next government very early into its term in office.