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The second round of the election will pass and it is time to look to the horizon beyond the release of the ballot and the election night of the commentators and the endless graphics on the televisions. Traditionally, the focus on local government will quickly disappear and everyone will rush to talk about the future of government.

For the past 12 years, the Institute for Market Economics has presented the study "Regional Profiles - Development Indicators". This year's analysis includes 73 indicators divided into 12 categories for the economic and social development of the Bulgarian regions and will be presented in detail at the end of November 2023. One of the key categories is Healthcare. It ranks the regions according to their results on 7 indicators key to the health system, and in the latest edition, an additional new indicator is included - "average life expectancy in years". Here we briefly present the changes in the positions of each area over the last 5 years and try to explore the main reasons for them.

The new edition of the study "Regional Profiles:Indicators of Development" 2023 is now ready and will be officially presented and published at the end of November 2023. The study includes 73 indicators distributed in 12 categories for the economic and social development of the regions.

For a decade, the demographic news for Bulgaria has been almost exclusively negative – the population is rapidly melting, the natural increase is deteriorating, and covid-19 has led to a sharp increase in the death rate. Some indicators, however, give reason to reconsider at least part of the general demographic dynamics, and even for a little optimism. Today we focus on fertility, which has seen a significant improvement in 2022 and is even approaching its replacement rate.

The IME publication "Economic Centers in Bulgaria - 2023" aims to research and present the concentration of economic activity in Bulgaria, and on the basis of indicators for enterprises, data on the labor market and economic interrelationships between individual municipalities, forms broad economic centers that do not are limited to the administrative-territorial division in the country.

After last week we brought you the figures for the 2023 Municipal Capital Expenditure Target Grant, today we look at the matching grant. The purpose of this transfer from the central budget is to compensate for the large differences in the own revenues of individual municipalities. That is why only the municipalities whose tax revenues per capita are below 120% of the average tax revenues per person for the country by the end of 2021 have access to this resource.

The study "Economic Centers of Bulgaria - 2023" examines the concentration of economic activity in the country. Based on enterprise indicators, market data of labor, demographic dynamics and economic interrelationships between individual municipalities, it forms broad economic centers that are not limited by the administrative boundaries of municipalities and regions.