The University at Albany clearly plays this role in the capital area. Perhaps equally important in terms of promoting local economic growth, colleges and universities can play a key role in creating jobs for skilled workers in local businesses. Colleges and universities conduct research and development that can have “spillover effects” into the local economy. Businesses in the region can take advantage of being close to these innovative activities and facilities to develop new products and technologies. This can also help draw new companies to the region to access university resources. Thus, successful industry–higher education partnerships can provide a quite a boost for a region’s economy. The local nanotech sector provides an excellent example of this type of partnership at work. During my visit to the University’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering this afternoon I look forward to seeing the facilities and hearing more about the Center’s plans to lead the way in global nanotech research. More broadly, I understand that our audience today includes several members of the Regional Economic Advisory Council – including the University at Albany’s president, George Philip and Michael Castellana, the co-chair of the Council – who are working to advance such partnerships and the outlook for the region. Going forward, the industry–higher education partnerships taking place here will be increasingly important. I expect the strong foundation already in place will help maintain the economic vitality of the capital region.
There is great uncertainty as to the development of the health crisis, the economic crisis related to it, and to how the political situation will evolve. Therefore, as you may have seen from the data we recently published, the Bulgarian National Bank remains conservative in its economic growth forecasts, and with a rather broad range of assumptions, at that. We are presently working on a new, updated assessment of this year’s situation and of our expectations for the next one. We will publish this assessment in October. We also carefully monitor the economic developments in the euro area, which will be of crucial significance, mainly regarding, but not limited to, external demand, for the way and the pace of recovery of our economy. We share the assessment of the European Central Bank, communicated just a few days ago. In short, this is as follows: there are clear signs of economic recovery; however, the uncertainty with regard to the pandemic and the way it will be curbed is still great. Depending on the developments, both in the country and in the euro area, we in the Bulgarian National Bank are ready to launch additional measures, if needed. Out of the context of specific additional crisis-related measures, in the current year we also achieved development of enormous strategic importance, which will be ever more highly valued in the future. What I have in mind is the simultaneous accession of the Bulgarian Lev to the EU exchange rate mechanism and the country to the European Banking Union.