Liberalisation of Bulgaria's foreign exchange regime and the prevention of money laundering
| Date | 01 January 1995 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025659 |
| Pages | 331-335 |
| Published date | 01 January 1995 |
| Author | Svetla Konstantinova |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal
of
Financial
Crime
Volume
2
Number
4
Liberalisation of Bulgaria's foreign exchange
regime and the prevention of money laundering
Svetla Konstantinova
Received:
14th
November,
1994
Svetla Konstantinova graduated from the
Uni-
versity of Sofia, Bulgaria in 1975. She was
formerly a general legal adviser in the Tourist
Promotion and Publicity Centre in Sofia, and
subsequently had three years' experience in the
Bulgarian Foreign Trade Bank.
Mrs Konstantinova has worked with the
Bulgarian National Bank (the Central Bank) since
the beginning of 1992 as a legal adviser in the
Foreign Exchange Operations Department and
since April 1994 as a legal expert in the same
department. Her responsibilities include the
foreign exchange regime and control legislation
and banking regulations, contracts between the
Central Bank and the commercial banks con-
cerning foreign exchange, and permissions
given for conducting certain foreign exchange
transactions and similar items.
She is currently engaged with the preparation
of the new banking regulations especially those
related to the implementation of the International
Convention on Money Laundering of 1990.
ABSTRACT
Since 1991 Bulgaria has embarked upon
legislative changes
which mark the abandon-
ment of
centrally
planned
economic
manage-
ment in favour of free economic enterprise.
This has entailed the
adoption
of a new con-
stitution and
changes
in laws governing the
operation of banks, credit and foreign
exchange
activities.
In
particular,
the foreign
exchange regime seeks
to
liberalise access to
the
foreign exchange market whilst controlling
those
aspects
which may lend themselves to
attempts to destabilise the foreign exchange
regime itself criminal activity and money
laundering.
INTRODUCTION
Bulgaria is a lovely small country, situ-
ated on the Balkan Peninsula. It was
founded 1,132 years ago. Democratic
laws and a Constitution following the
model of the Belgian Constitution, were
in force until 1944.
Since 1991 there have been clear
indications of the results of reorganisa-
tion of the country's economic relations
with OECD member countries. Never-
theless the process taking place in
Eastern European countries still has a
substantial impact on the economic
development and reform in this country.
Economic reform is in progress and
like other Eastern European countries,
Bulgaria is undergoing the transition to a
market economy. The attainment of this
goal required a fundamental modifica-
tion of the legislative basis which func-
tioned during the period 1944-1990.
LEGAL REGULATION OF THE
ECONOMY
The beginning of 1991 saw the start of a
period of paramount importance for the
development of Bulgarian legislation.
The radical changes in the statutory
framework testify that the country really
is abandoning the centrally planned
Page
331
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