The Government found a new business

During last week from word to word suddenly the Government decided to organize its own golf company. The idea came about the middle of last year, when a special task force was set up with the colossal task to determine how Bulgaria should become a competitive golf destination, which could be attractive to solvent tourists. After half a year of "hard thinking" the idea was born to create a company, 100% state owned, which is to build and than manage golf complexes.

The main idea of the authors of this undertaking was to protect the territories of Bulgaria from over-building. It is strange, why at all the state must start a business endeavor, which by default are not inherent activity, and which is more important it could not perform with the required economic adequacy. On the other hand such an initiative requires enormous investments, which will be financed by the taxpayers. 

If a business idea is developed, financed and implemented by private investors, than its success or failure are results of the decisions taken (right or wrong) on the basis of the risk assessment and the return on the specific investment. In the case with the attempt to do business by the government, the economic logic evaporates immediately and the questions related to risk assessment – returns and the effective management of assets, look like they do not exists. One very simple but fundamental reason for that is that the state: 1) does not have the knowledge, the mechanisms and the capacity to manage a business under competitive pressure and 2) due to historically built mechanisms of existence and financing (through taking money from the population with taxation, state loans etc.), the state practically manages someone else's money and as a result the logical economic view is missing. Thus, a distortion of the market results, which leads to errors in the information transmitted through prices, demand and supply, value of labor, etc.  In other words an artificial reallocation of resources in the economy is achieved which directly created the wrong stimuli and expectations in the real sector of the economy.

On the other hand the development of the golf business in Bulgaria is sufficiently dynamic and the market, as a main regulator of investment decisions, directs significant resources into building and functioning of the so called golf parks. At present on the territory of Bulgaria already exist at least 7-8 enormous complexes, while two of those are in the territory, where the future state company intends to make its first investment – in the region of Dobrich. On the bases of the already existing golf parks and the development of this business, in the country several international golf tournaments take place and many tourist companies made special packages with offers with similar vacations. Beyond any doubt that is a sign that the business is developing and the market itself (without any assistance from the state) successfully directs investments towards this type of business. This is confirmed by the reduced investment interest towards the enormous vacation villages and it's the redirection toward the building of business centers, logistic centers and recreational parks (which include also golf courses).

On the subject of preserving the land by the state one must not forget the fact about the main objective of NATURA 2000: "NATURA 2000 is a pan–European network, consisting of protected territories, which aims to provide long term survival of the most valuable and endangered spices and habitats for Europe in accordance with the fundamental international agreements in the area of the environment protection and bio diversity".  

In conclusion we could state that if the Government's measures prove to be insufficient, it could implement other business idea for "protection of the territories". A very effective measure could be the building of ecological recreational villages which provides specific sex services. If prostitution is made legal, there is an enormous potential to attract many solvent investors and the country could become leading with respect to this type of relaxation-rehabilitation procedures. Naturally, before that, it is necessary to get assistance from the state experts, who could form a task force and to give their recommendations for future actions in that direction.