The Transition
That Never HappenedAt Least Not The Way That Was Recommended


The main topics of the Report

Privatization

The Report came to be known as Rahn-Utt. It built on a few basic postulates - the first two of which were Liberalization and Privatization. Liberalization of prices and privatization were not end goals in themselves. They were means by which to improve production efficiency, to stop the unnecessary wastage of resources and ultimately to increase the standard of living. These objectives were identified and listed at the beginning of the Report. The authors recognized that the overall success of the reform depended on the success of privatization.

The authors of the report argued that there is no recipe for privatization because history does not provide a road map for the transition from command to market economy. The report built upon the experience of Southeast Asia, Latin America and the experience of ex-socialist countries such as Poland and Hungary which had started economic reforms decades before.

An essential part of the privatization plan was the search for consensus amongst the political parties and the involvement of the people. The report concluded that it would be better to facilitate the purchase of shares in companies by the actual people working in them. The authors came up with the idea of offering interest-free loans with a repayment period of three years as means to incentivize people working in a company to participate in its privatization. Thus, it was believed if privatization was the key ingredient of reform poverty and suffering would never reach the kind of catastrophic levels seen in the mid-nineties. Unfortunately, the kind of privatization described in the report did not come to fruition in Bulgaria.

It is interesting to note how the report defined the purpose of privatization. „Obviously the main goal“ said the first chapter of the report „is to improve the efficiency and productivity of Bulgarian enterprises in order to improve the standard of living“. The report argued that privatization is the basis of the reform; that it affects politics and the economy because it is a „political process with economic consequences“. The idea of the report was for the Bulgarian population to get involved in the privatization. Chapter 1- „Action Plan for Bulgaria“: “Staff to actively participate in the privatization, to facilitate the purchase of shares by employees. In some cases, the whole enterprise can be sold to staff“. In fact, the most noticeable gap between what the report advised and what happened in reality was privatization.

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