Bulgaria's Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski believes the country will take between two and four years to establish pre-crunch levels of credit.

The access to bank loans in the country has become more difficult and they have become more expensive, the minister told a group of businessmen in a an open discussion on the financial crisis in the town of Gabrovo.

'Some of the measures we should take involve mobilisation of the financial resources, draw-in of partners with capital and expansion of the on-hand capital," the minister said.

The property market had already been hit by the global economic crisis and in a few months the EU member states will start discussing a crisis in the public finances, he forecast.

'It will take us between two and four years to come back to the credit comfort we had before,' he added.

'Over ten billion euro in foreign capital has been circulating in Bulgaria's banking sector for ten years now,' Mr. Oresharski said.

'As a result, the total worth of the bank loans in Bulgaria exceeds the savings of the Bulgarians by over ten billion euro,' he said.


Robin Bowman