3.00 Pleven 2023, Инвестиционен анализ

Local businesses have favourable conditions for carrying out their activities. The leading contribution to this is made by the municipal administration and the local executive in the person of the mayor. In this regard, the local authorities implement separate policy elements to ease the conditions for starting a business and carry out a policy to attract investments – regulations have been adopted to facilitate economic activity and to attract investments, an industrial zone has been built with secured infrastructure and communications. the mayor’s team is making efforts to attract foreign investors.

The municipal administration ensures an adequate level of publicity regarding the created registers, the administrative services provided, the municipal property, including electronic services, thereby providing opportunities for the participation of citizens and businesses in the planning of municipal development policies.

The municipality maintains a website that presents well-structured information about the services provided to citizens and businesses. The site does not support a special section for business, but the main page provides access to sections that provide information on various aspects of the economic life of the municipality: “Administrative service”, “Trending” and “Buyer profile”. In the “Administrative service” section, information is structured on “Construction and technical infrastructure”, “Local economic development”, “Territory development”, “Agriculture and forests”, “Application forms”. In the “Trending” section, information is published about the registers that provide adequately structured information about administrative services; information about tenders, contests and concessions, announcements is published. In this section, a subsection “Invest in Pleven” has been created, which at the time of checking does not contain data on the topic.

At the beginning of the mayoral term 2019-2023, the mayor launched an active policy to attract additional resources through projects and to attract investments. Based on an adopted ordinance of the Municipal Council from 2016, the mayoral team has taken actions to create an industrial zone. There is no current data on its development. The mayor exercises adequate control over the executors of contracts with the municipality and adheres to the requirements for transparency in the awarding of public contracts. Certain deficits are found in transparency and equality in the dialogue with local business regarding decisions for the development of the municipality and the adoption of regulations regarding economic activity in the municipality. During the implementation of the control activity in relation to the business, an adequate normative base has been created, which provides for an equal approach, but along with this, assessments have been registered for individual exceptions to the rules.

A private industrial zone was also created in the municipality – the Pleven Industrial Park was created, which is owned and managed by “Industrial Zone Pleven” Ltd. – a private company with equity participation of “Bulgarian Property Developments” (BPD) and “FairPlay International AD (FPI) “.

The municipal council has created clear rules for interaction with citizens, but the application of the mechanisms for interaction with civil organisations and businesses raises some questions. In 2016, an Ordinance was adopted for the promotion of investments of municipal importance in the municipality of Pleven and the issuance of class B certificates. The municipal councillors apply a more passive approach when performing the control function in relation to the local executive authority. Municipal Council considers the opinion of individual companies and business organisations, and the criteria for their inclusion in the work of committees and in other forums discussing local development policies are not clear. There are estimates that some of the decisions of the Municipal Council are made as a result of external unregulated influence.

The contribution of the structures of the civil society to the implementation of public control over the institutions is relatively limited. In this regard, several civil organisations have contributed.