Investment Promotion Act.

This Act settles the terms and the order of encouraging investments on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria, the activity of the state bodies in the sphere of encouraging investments, as well as their protection. The main purposes of this Act shall be: raising the competitive abilities of the Bulgarian economy through increase of the investments for science research, innovations and technological development in high added value production and services by observing the principles of steady development; improvement of the investment climate and overcoming the regional divergence in the socioeconomic development; creating new and highly productive job positions. Investment promotion under this Act shall be carried out mainly by: administrative servicing in reduced terms and individual administrative servicing; sale or for profit constitution of limited real rights in estates that are private state or private municipal property without auction or contest according to market or lower prices; sale or for profit constitution of limited real rights in terrains with developed inbound technical infrastructure of public state ownership without auction or contest according to market or lower prices; financial assistance for development of technical infrastructure components; financial assistance for training and acquisition of professional qualification; financial aid for partial refund of the mandatory insurance payments made to the state social insurance, additional mandatory pension insurance and mandatory health insurance for the account of the investor as an employer to the benefit of newly hired employees for the implementation of the investment project; possibilities for other forms of state aid, institutional support, public-private partnership or constitution of mixed companies – for priority investment projects; various types of transactions between the investor and a trade company established for construction and development of industrial zones; tax relief under the Corporate Income Taxation Act. This Act also establishes that if an international agreement, party to which is the Republic of Bulgaria, stipulates more favourable conditions for carrying out economic activity by foreigners the more favourable conditions shall apply according to the international agreement.
The text is divided into seven main sections as follows: Chapter I. General provisions; Chapter II. State policy in the sphere of investments; Chapter III. Investement promotion; Chapter IV. Priority investment projects and investment projects of municipal significance; Chapter V. Rights over real estates; Chapter VI. Special provisions; Chapter VI. Control of implementation of the investment projects; Chapter VII. Administrative and penalty provisions.