Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

The Deputy Prime Minister in charge of coalition policies and state administration Rumyana Bachvarova was the special guest today at the presentation of the new charges for electronic signature at the pilot front-office of Bulgarian Posts in Sofia. She received an electronic signature with a three-year validity period. The Deputy Prime Minister explained that this is a step in the implementation of the government policy towards facilitating citizens and the business. Upon receiving her e-signature she said she would recommend it to everyone and that this is a small but important step for the e-government.

People could use more services faster and safer at half the price as of 21 January one of the major e-signature providers – “Information Services” AD, introduced a new tariff policy, said the Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technology and communications Valery Borissov at the presentation of the new terms and conditions for obtaining e-signature certificates. The price for an electronic signature is 12 Levs, which is half of the price until now. “This equals to a monthly transport ticket”, said the deputy minister. For companies the reduction in the price is more than 15 per cent and there is a 40 per cent drop in the price of the card reader and e-signature card.

“This step is in line with the policy of the government and MTITC to provide larger access to electronic services”, added the Deputy Minister.  In his words up until now among the main reasons for the scarce use of e-signature was its price, which the digital administration requires as identification. “Electronic services facilitate people when sending tax declarations, sending information to the Commercial Register, receiving e-criminal records, reporting on EU-funded projects, tracking documents in the filing systems of the state administration, reviewing medical records, etc.” Deputy Minister Borissov gave an example with the electronic application and receiving of a criminal record. The electronic signature ensures the security and intactness of the tax declaration, for example, and certifies its authenticity. This facilitates people and companies to send in their documents without having to stand in lines and to obtain a 5 per cent discount in case they owe money to the state. Valery Borissov added that the level of security of the signature is really high. In the past 14 years almost 400 000 e-signatures have been issued and this number is to increase with the increase of the available e-services.

The Executive Director of Bulgarian Posts Deyan Daneshki and the Executive Director of “Information Services” Ivaylo Philipov hosted the event.