29.12.2021
HERE'S HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR PERSONAL INFLATION
Rising inflation and higher spending around the Christmas holidays are asking more and more people how to optimize their spending.
Most experts advise us to make a detailed breakdown of our monthly consumption, and the National Statistical Institute provides an an opportunity to calculate our personal inflation.
Traditionally, the National Statistical Institute presents monthly and annual inflation, both of which are calculated on the basis of an average consumer basket.
However, it is not valid in the same way for different households, as their way of life presupposes different consumption, according to BNR.
That's why experts advise us to first make a monthly detailed breakdown of our costs. This means that if we leave the supermarket with purchases worth BGN 100, we can write in detail what part of them are for food, hygiene materials, cigarettes and coffee, for example.
On the one hand, this will help us eliminate unnecessary costs for goods that have tempted us, and on the other hand - to monitor how each necessary product or service we consume changes in price.
This can be done through the personal inflation calculator of the National Statistical Institute, which was developed back in 2010. It groups goods and we can track, for example, inflation in food and soft drinks we consume.
Monthly and annual graphs will show the deviation of our personal inflation from the average calculated index, which, in turn, should help us better plan the household budget.
The latest forecast made by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Asen Vasilev is that next year's annual inflation will be 5 to 6 percent.
22.12.2021
UP TO BGN 600,000 WILL BE ALLOCATED UNDER A PROJECT FOR PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND ACQUISITION OF SKILLS IN AGRICULTURE
The eighteenth online meeting of the thematic working group for the development of the Strategic Plan for Rural Development in Bulgaria for 2023-2027 will be held on December 23. One of the interventions that will be considered by the participants in the meeting will be for vocational training and skills acquisition in the field of agriculture, financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).
Improving human resources
The Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization (ISSS) for the period 2021-2027 emphasizes the need to improve human resources through investments in training and key competencies in the priority thematic areas for smart specialization and technologies of Industry 4.0, incl. improving digital skills and working with digital technologies.
ISSS 2021-2027 states that in terms of the penetration of digital technologies in the economy and society (Digital Economy and Society Index - DESI), the result of our country on the criterion of "Human Capital" is significantly below the EU average. Here, the assessment of the level of skills in the field of digital technologies is among the lowest in the EU. The share of people with at least basic skills in the field of digital technologies amounts to about 29% of the Bulgarian population, while the EU average is 57%.
On the other hand, it is necessary to encourage the participation of farmers, their organizations and the National Agricultural Advisory Service in the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (EASA), which will expand the opportunities for sharing, exchanging and disseminating knowledge and experience, including in the context of the national network of the common agricultural policy. For this reason, the Strategic Plan includes an intervention for vocational training and skills acquisition in the field of agriculture.
The aim of the intervention is to improve the quality of implementation through knowledge and innovation and to increase the share of farmers receiving support for consultation, training, knowledge exchange or participation in operational groups in order to improve the quality of implementation in economic, environmental, climate and a resource efficiency aspect.
Who can apply?
Beneficiaries of the measure will be organizations providing knowledge transfer - universities, vocational high schools, research institutes, experimental stations, licensed vocational training centers and regional, regional and nationally representative branch organizations for production and processing of agricultural products.
Supported activities
Support is provided for training and skills acquisition in the field of agriculture and forestry for persons involved in the agriculture and forestry sector. The support covers activities for vocational training and acquisition of skills, which include conducting courses for acquiring qualification in a profession or part of a profession, in accordance with the requirements of the Vocational Education and Training Act (VETA), refresher courses in accordance with the requirements of Higher Education Act. Specialized courses for acquiring the right to work with agricultural and forestry equipment are also allowed. Information seminars to increase knowledge on specific topics aimed at achieving the specific objectives and identified needs in the Strategic Plan and demonstration activities are also among the eligible activities.
What are the rates?
The support is provided in the form of a flat rate per unit of product (standard simplified costs), covering up to 100% of the amount of supported costs.
The maximum amount of eligible costs per beneficiary for each activity is as follows:
Each organization can receive support for only one project for which it is a beneficiary, within the period of implementation of the strategic plan and participate as a partner in up to two projects during the period of implementation of the strategic plan.
22.12.2021
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE UPCOMING INTERREG VI-A ROMANIA-BULGARIA PROGRAMME FOR 2021-2027
The program team invites you to participate in two Virtual Workshops where we will present the draft of the Interreg VI-A Romania-Bulgaria and the future financing opportunities:
To attend please fill in the online registration form until 7th of January:
https://forms.gle/1kx345Xx2AbK6czXA
Zoom link and agenda will be provided upon registration. Kindly note that English is the working language of the event.
22.12.2021
NEW FRAUD WITH MONEY TRANSFERS FROM THE BNB
The Bulgarian National Bank warns of more frequent cases of e-mails received from citizens, seemingly sent on behalf of the central bank, regarding remittances received at the BNB in their name.
On this occasion, the BNB informed that it does not send such messages to citizens.
These messages are a classic form of "phishing" attack and fraud, using the name of a recognizable institution.
The messages received "on behalf of the BNB" were sent from servers outside Bulgaria and contain a link leading to a site for theft of sensitive customer information (personal data and bank card data).
Upon receiving such a message by e-mail, the BNB urges citizens not to open it and not to follow the links contained in the message.
21.12.2021
RIGHTS IN CASE OF UNUSED, EXPIRING LEAVE
At the end of this year, the statute of limitations for paid leave from 2019 expires, reminded by the Executive Agency "General Labor Inspectorate". All days of paid annual leave may be used until the end of their two-year limitation period, whether or not they are postponed for the following calendar year.
Part of the leave may be postponed to the next calendar year at the request of employees and with the consent of the employer. For important production reasons, the employer could also postpone part of the leave, but he is obliged to ensure the use of at least half of the days in the year to which it relates.
Where the leave is deferred or not used until the end of the calendar year to which it relates, the employer shall be obliged to ensure its use during the first six months of the following calendar year. After this period, the employee can go on leave on his own with 14 days' notice. The employer must inform the workers at the beginning of the year of the days of leave due, including the rest of the previous year.
In case of termination of employment, the employee is entitled to compensation for all days that have not expired, regardless of whether they are transferred or not in the next year. The limitation period for paid annual leave ceases to run if the employee uses another type of leave - for pregnancy and childbirth, child care, etc.
According to the changes in the labor legislation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the employer has the right to provide half of the paid annual leave during the declared emergency situation, which was extended until March 31, 2022, and without the request of its employees. For this purpose, the activity of the enterprise must be suspended or limited by an order of a state body.
In the conditions of an epidemic situation, the employer has no right to refuse paid leave to certain categories of workers from vulnerable groups. However, he cannot unilaterally grant any type of unpaid leave. The use of such must be requested by the employee.
21.12.2021
670,000 BULGARIANS WILL IMPROVE THEIR DIGITAL SKILLS UNDER MLSP PROGRAMS
About 670,000 Bulgarians will undergo training to improve their digital skills under programs of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. We plan in the next few years mass trainings for the entire active population in the country. This was stated by the Minister of Labor and Social Policy Georgi Gokov during the closing of the campaign of the Operational Program for Human Resources Development (OPHRD) "Get in the Network", which took place on December 16 at the National Palace of Culture.
The training of 500,000 Bulgarians who have no or almost no digital skills will be funded by the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan. Another 170,000 people will improve their digital skills under OPHRD. "A platform for online training will be built so that every Bulgarian can gain new knowledge," said Minister Gokov.
The Networking campaign is part of the Conference on the Future of Europe and aims to provoke a debate on the topic of digital transformation. The initiative took place in Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Stara Zagora, Burgas, Sandanski and Sofia. During the events, more than 2,100 surveys were completed with people's opinions and recommendations for the future of the digital age. The results will be summarized and sent to the European Commission for inclusion in the debate on the future of Europe in the area of digital transformation during the French Presidency in 2022.
The initiative was supported by the hosts of all events of the campaign Katerina Evro and Alexander Kadiev, snowboarder Alexandra Zhekova, conductor Maxim Eshkenazi, journalist Georgi Toshev, producers Ivan Hristov and Andrey Arnaudov, chef Ivan Manchev and poet Maria Doneva. Children from 51 Elisaveta Bagryan High School also took part.
21.12.2021
NEWLY CREATED TOOLS DETERMINE THE NECESSARY DIGITAL SKILLS FOR PROFESSIONS FROM OVER 90 ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The newly created toolkit will explore the various professions and positions of over 90 economic activities and will determine the necessary digital skills for them. It is composed of purpose-built methodologies to meet the challenges posed by the rapid development of the labor market and new forms of work.
The toolkit, developed in the implementation of the procedure "Development of digital skills" and funded by the Operational Program "Human Resources Development", will be implemented until 2023 and is crucial, not only because in recent years the requirements for digital knowledge and skills of the workforce, but also because these skills and competencies provide sustainable and quality employment, especially in a pandemic. It comes in response to the digital transformation of the labor market, through which new professions, new forms of teleworking are emerging and existing professions are being transformed.
In the implementation of 7 projects, generalized profiles of digital skills will be developed, which will be useful for employers in hiring staff and training the workforce. There will also be a focus on the development of education and training policies and the taking of more concrete measures to address the mismatch between labor supply and demand.
21.12.2021
RADOSTIN CHOLAKOV FROM THE RHODOPES IS THE YOUNGEST IN THE "TOP 30 UNDER 30" RANKING OF FORBES - BULGARIA
15-year-old Radostin Cholakov from the Rhodopean village of Barutin is the youngest Bulgarian to be included in the prestigious ranking of Forbes - Bulgaria magazine - "Top 30 under 30", we learn from the site epicenter.bg
The tenth-grader from the Plovdiv Mathematical High School creates software that voices textbooks and makes grammatical and syntactic analysis in Bulgarian.
Radostin explained to bTV that the software aims to improve the support of the Bulgarian language on the Internet by providing linguistic tools for language processing.
Artificial intelligence for the Bulgarian language - this is the most prestigious thing at the moment," added the computer science teacher from OMG" Acad. Kiril Popov”- Plovdiv Maria Vasileva.
"It was like magic - I was very interested in how to write codes, numbers and get interesting applications," added Radostin.
Today, the young programmer is in Forbes' annual Top 30 Under 30 for Europe's leading young leaders, inventors and entrepreneurs.
"It really inspires me. This is a very high assessment," he added.
Now Radostin is developing a new platform in which he is trying to use artificial intelligence to predict how cryptocurrencies will move forward. The student dreams of creating his own software company and building products that are useful to people. Let us recall the biography of Bill Gates (see here), and the fact that the young Bulgarian is ahead of him in his development.
Five months ago, Radi became famous for the fact that artificial intelligence solved problems from the state matriculation exam in Bulgarian language and literature with 78% accuracy. This project impressed the participants in the forum "STEM, innovation and something else", which was organized at the Mathematical High School "Acad. Kiril Popov” in Plovdiv, within the National Program “Innovations in Action”.
The creator of the platform is the young programmer Radostin Cholakov, who finished ninth grade at the high school. He is now 15 years old, but he started developing software at the age of nine while studying in the Rhodopean village of Barutin.
The project, entitled AzBuki.ML (https://azbuki-ml.com/), is an online platform that is a set of algorithms and models with artificial intelligence, with the ability to process the Bulgarian language. This includes correcting grammatical and punctuation errors, generating texts, synthesizing voice reading from written text, summarizing, assessing the mood in the texts. The computer can make short retellings of long news articles, as well as put commas in sentences.
Teachers joke that Radostin's invention is another argument for conducting exams in person, not online, as has been heard lately. The program can help tricksters get undeservedly high results.
However, Radi's last thought is to help with unfair exams. "My goal is to prepare a service for developers, companies or researchers who have no knowledge in the field of neuro-linguistic programming. My idea was inspired by similar English language models behind Google and Apple's voice assistants. I have developed applications for them and I have always been annoyed that they do not have good support for the Bulgarian language," says Radostin.
According to him, one of the main challenges in developing such a project with neural networks is data collection. For AzBuki.ML several million sentences and words were used, collected from the buildings of BAS, BulTreeBank and open online portals. He was assisted by scientists from IICT, IBE and UCHIMI at BAS, with their expert knowledge of the Bulgarian language, or with provided access to data. The platform is also used for scientific and demonstration purposes in several universities and high schools.
The possible applications of such a product are many. It can be used to analyze mood, it can be applied in online stores to measure the success of your products through user comments. Media websites can incorporate voice reading into their articles. Chatbot developers and other smart helpers can integrate the grammar analysis module.
The latest service in AzBuki.ML is software to improve the performance of voice synthesizers for the Bulgarian language, so that a more realistic voice can be synthesized from written text. With this addition, the platform already provides many opportunities not only for developers and software companies, but also in the field of education. For example, the computer will be able to read the text of textbooks to help children with disabilities.
Before participating in his first Olympics, the boy from Barutin heard from his math teacher in the village: "Radi, you do not have the necessary training here, there are no city lessons, entertaining, private teachers, we are not at this level, no wonder you can't do it." I was still young and that disappointed me a bit, but I didn't give up, says the young man.
"Being from the village of Barutin in the Rhodopes has never stopped me from dreaming, fighting and moving forward," says the programmer, who loves the beauty and fresh air of the Rhodopes.
Radostin already has many successful projects, won competitions, scholarships and awards. The applications and programs developed by him are of great interest. From the age of 12, Radostin began partnering with the global giant Google, which evaluated his programming skills. Radostin Cholakov developed two applications for "Google Assistant" and then it brought him gifts and $ 2,400 in the form of vouchers. Radi also made an application for playing chess.
Radostin's parents live modestly, his father works in a carpentry shop and his mother is a seamstress. But they are proud of their son, who has won every Olympics in the region, and his notebook is from top to bottom with sixes. He is a laureate of the National Olympiad in Information Technology for 2020 and 2021. He is also the winner of an award from The Bulgarian Association of Information Technologies, in the youth category, informs the Ministry of Education and Science.
21.12.2021
THEY DECIDED ON THE VALIDITY OF THE COVID CERTIFICATE WHEN TRAVELING
The European Commission has announced that it has adopted new mandatory rules for the validity of COVID vaccination certificates.
The period within which EU countries will be required to recognize travel certificates will be nine months from the last dose.
For the time being, no validity period for the additional (booster) dose certificates is foreseen.
The new rules introduce indications that clearly reflect the difference between completed vaccination certificates and additional dose certificates. For example, when placing an additional dose of vaccinated with a single-dose preparation, a document marked 2/1 will be issued, and for the others - 3/3, the commission explains.
It is added that when using certificates for purposes other than travel to the EU, countries will be able to apply their own rules.
So far, 807 million certificates have been issued in the EU, recognized in 60 countries around the world. It is specified that the presented changes are not related to changes in the form of the certificate, but will require reconfiguration of the applications, through which the validity of the documents of the vaccinated is checked.
21.12.2021
BULGARIA IS AMONG THE COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST SOCIAL RISK IN THE EU
Bulgaria and Romania are the countries with the highest social risk in the European Union. This shows the Social Risk Index*, which surveys 185 countries around the world.
The ranking is prepared by Euler Hermes, and the assessment takes into account various factors that indicate the degree of long-term vulnerability. It provides a perspective on social tensions, which can have an impact on government, business development and the investment climate.
The Social Risk Index ranks countries from 1st to 185th, with those with the lowest risk at the forefront. Thus, Bulgaria ranks 59th, followed by only one member state of the European Union - Romania (63rd place). Experts point out that the two countries are the poorest in the EU and have the lowest level of public confidence in governance, as evidenced by a series of early elections. The assessment also took into account the low level of vaccination against COVID-19 with access.
The country with the lowest social risk in the world is Denmark, with Norway and Sweden also in the top three. France and the United States are the two developed economies for which Euler Hermes analysts report a significant increase in social risk compared to a previous study published in June 2020. In the current ranking, they rank 17th and 35th, respectively.
The winners in Central and Eastern Europe are the Czech Republic and Slovenia with 19th and 20th positions. With a better ranking than Bulgaria are countries in the region that are still outside the EU - Serbia and Montenegro - in 46th and 55th place.
Russia (75) and Ukraine (81) are behind, and Turkey (122) is in a very worrying position, where tensions are rising due to the weakening Turkish lira and declining purchasing power. "At the bottom" are Congo (185), Sudan (184) and Afghanistan (183).
"The Social Risk Index takes into account 12 parameters and in the long run can guide us to the vulnerability and stability of business in the respective countries. Therefore, it is another tool for companies to assess the degree of danger in commercial transactions," explains Kamelia Popova, manager of Euler Hermes for Bulgaria.
"Turkey, Romania and Russia are traditionally destinations where Bulgarian business finds its trading partners. Therefore, the tendency for higher social risk there should be taken into account, among other factors when concluding deals," she added.
