Host: Mr. Behar, what kind of a summer are we sending off? How has the situation in our country affected the business?

Maxim: I often say that right now the whole world is a big mess, and from this mess we have to create something that can suit businesses, employees, pensioners, of course, students, and all people. After all, we, the businessmen, we provide jobs, we pay taxes and, in the end, we carry the state on our backs, figuratively speaking. Without business, the state cannot have any development, not to say that it cannot even function. The summer was very controversial, very confusing because of two very strong factors, even three. The first, of course, was the exit from this two and a half years long pandemic, which for many reasons confused the way of doing business, the way of communication between people. We still can't get out of this merry-go-round that has piled up on us, remote work. In the field of services and in the communication business it seems to be somehow easier, but the manufacturing enterprises, the tourism business, the airlines - all this was affected in an extremely negative way and each of these entities was struggling to survive. The second factor is the war in Ukraine and all this confusion that has occurred with raw materials, with energy, with price going up, with inflation and everything else. And the third factor – this is the new generation that comes to work in our companies, which largely determines the trends in business. This is the generation between 22 and 30 and the first generation after the war, the World War II, which has never in any way had the slightest problem to fight and to solve. And the whole society must teach this generation that it must work very hard according to corporate standards, be very responsible, i.e., things that are missing as a value system in them. I say it with the best wishes, it happened as it happened. But this is part of the very big confusion of business, not only in Bulgaria, but also international business. However, Bulgaria still has the unique position it had 10, 15 years ago, and for me it is a huge, I would say a positive surprise, that it managed to keep this position. And it's not just the cheap labor, but the very highly intelligent flow of people who can bring added value to foreign investors. And it is no coincidence that Sofia is the mecca of the outsourcing business or the mecca of those businesses that are located in Bulgaria but work abroad. And again, it is not only the low wages, although especially in this business they are not quite low, but rather the high intellectual ability of the Bulgarian nation, which is typical European. And in those years, the 1990s to the mid-2000s, when there were big arguments about whether Bulgaria should go to Europe, whether to become a member of the European Union, I said that Bulgaria is not going to Europe, Bulgaria is returning to Europe after these 50 years of communism, when it was separated from its logical business and intellectual partners in the European Union.

Host: You have identified several extremely important issues that have affected business in recent years. But what has COVID actually taught business? Has business become more sustainable?

Maxim: Undoubtedly - it's not only business, but also in life in general. But in business it feels the most effective and the fastest - the more difficulties we have, the more we learn to overcome them and create even better products. We have learned an awful lot in these two and a half years. And it's not just remote business and working from home, it's a total change in communications, in the way we communicate with each other, both within teams and with our customers. We saw that there could be a completely different life that was imposed on us, of course, unintentionally, but this life taught us to be much more flexible, much more inventive, I would say much more thrifty, much more pragmatic mostly. Because I often repeat this word - pragmatics, pragmatics. The more pragmatic we are in business and even in our personal lives these days, the more success can be guaranteed. So, pragmatism is one of the things. The second is different communications. You know that I manage an International Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where we have been seeing each other for 10-12 years now, every year we go there, leave a bag of money - expensive hotels, restaurants, halls, and everything. One trip to the Forum in Davos for several days is a minimum of 5-6 thousand Euros for each of the participants. It is now the third year that we have held these forums, which we call summits, online. And of course, it's not the same feeling we have when we communicate in person, but we share the same, maybe even more original ideas. All these ideas stay saved in "Zoom", "Teams" or whatever platform we use, stay saved, can last sometimes two or three days, i.e., absolutely unlimited time. We are not worried about the fact that it is evening or early morning, that the hall will be locked, that there will be coffees, there will be no coffees. From a purely performance standpoint, on the efficiency side, these forums are currently much, much, much more productive, and much, much, much more pragmatic. You like a presentation and after 6 months you remember it, you log into your computer, you play it. There are also much, much, much better sides that we are only now discovering, and on top of that, from a cost perspective, the management of these projects turns out to be much easier. It taught us many things, it taught us patience. And again, we saw that there is another way of communication, another way of success and another way of working.

Host: Mr. Behar, how do you assess the way the state takes care of the native business?

Maxim: I have been thinking for years that the state would hardly help business. Rather, its main role, especially for Bulgaria, for the Bulgarian state, is to try not to interfere with business. Undoubtedly, taxes in Bulgaria are extremely low - 10% Corporate tax is not found anywhere in Europe, 5% "Dividend" tax is not found anywhere in Europe, in Slovakia I think it is 0%. But taxes in Bulgaria are extremely favorable for business. I remember the times when taxes were 40, 42, 45% and the collection of those taxes was under 10%. The lower the taxes, the greater the collection, the better the transparent, ethical business feels, the one that wants to earn transparently and not be in the gray sector. And 10-12 years ago, when in Bulgaria the government decided to lower taxes, firstly the collection rose sharply, secondly, a lot of companies suddenly came into the light and started feeling much better. I think we should keep taxes, I think we should motivate all businesses as much as possible in the best and most pragmatic ways. For example, the business with solar panels and with solar devices in general, with people buying electric cars so that they can not only protect nature, but also be much more modern and be much more efficient. They will not pollute the air, on the other hand, they will save money, since the difference in going 100 km with an electric car or with a gasoline or diesel car is huge. There are a few small things that the state should do, although, again, it should not interfere in business at all.

Host: What are these things?

Maxim: For example, to speed up and facilitate the registration of business companies, communication between the state and business companies. You know that now, in order to get a simple permit or to register your company, or to get some stupid note, you have to wait sometimes hours in some municipality or in some institution. All this can happen - it happens all over Europe. I'm not talking about countries like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, where it can be done in minutes online. But Bulgaria is the only country where the so-called e-government or e-administration does not work, and it is the absolute concern of the state. In addition to having to take care of foreign policy, defense, security, it has to facilitate its relations with business and communication with business, keep taxes low and open its doors wide to foreign investors, because in the end we cannot do it ourselves. There must be good and guaranteed foreign investment.

Host: Mr. Behar, in your public appearances you have said that business should give politicians a home. Why?

Maxim: Rather, the image I use is that we play for one team and yet the state and the politicians who run the state must know that we are the center-forwards, and they are the defenders. But we play on the same team. Politics in the modern world must be entirely dependent on the opinion and operations of business. I.e., the way in which the business develops should be determining for the politicians and the politicians should ultimately serve with all their laws, regulations, decisions the business. But not in a way that business pays politicians - not at all. But rather the decisions that politicians have to make should make it easier to do business and make profits so that our society can live better and have better revenue and have even better communication with the world and with investors. A very simple role, but it won't happen because the political system anywhere in the world, this political system, which by some strange coincidence we still call "democracy", it doesn't work anymore.

Host: And what should we call it?

Maxim: Well, it is still called "democracy", but it is not what we imagined 20, 30, 40 years ago, even what the world and Europe imagined, because democracy implies mandate, implies elections, free elections every four years. We see in Bulgaria...

Host: A little bit more.

Maxim: 4 by 4 – 16 years actually came together in one year, a year and a half in Bulgaria. And even more so that back then, when there was no social media, no online communication, the only way voters could communicate with the state or politicians was through elections. Well, now we communicate with them every day on social media. I think that the state, the government, but this will probably take years, should be some hybrid between an electoral democracy and the management of a large corporation or company. For example, if the director or the chairman of the board of this company goes somewhere, or if the company loses revenue, cannot pay wages to the workers, all the management leaves the next day, a general meeting is held, the management is gathered and is told: "Bye! You didn't make it!". That still can't happen in politics. Because, for example in London, we saw what happened with Boris Johnson and the so-called "Party Gate", but it lasted 6 to 8 painful months, and not because of bad management, but because of bad behavior or underestimation of the situation then. In my opinion, this cannot happen anywhere else, except in Great Britain, let alone in Bulgaria. And so there must also be some sort of electronic control over the government. I will give a very simple example. We hold elections, everyone promises something, of course, before the elections. The party that wins, promises to have no budget deficit more than 3% and says: "There will be no budget deficit more than 3%, we will not touch taxes, we will invest, we will raise pensions" - all these promises that we know very well for years. However, they would have electronic control over these promises. If the government decides for a year not to touch pensions, i.e., not to increase them, or somehow decides to increase the budget deficit, a software says: "Sorry, you didn't keep your promise, from March 1^st you are no longer a government."

Host: Who will control this software?

Maxim: It doesn't need control. Being programmed that on March 1^st of some year the pensions should be raised, but they have not been raised, of course, 1 million conditions will be set inside - a war, another crisis, a pandemic. But under normal conditions, if a government does not fulfill its promises, then it must go. I'm getting a little into the realm of fiction - I know, but I think it’s the only logical way out of the political system in the world and in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is a separate topic, and we need to discuss a lot. We need to find the common things that unite us, not the differences that separate us - what it's happening right now. Between all the political forces there are some small things in common, they may be 1%, 3% or 5% - we must live better, there must be better conditions for business, there must be better income for these people who work conscientiously and responsibly, and so, and so, and so, and so. The political forces, which will probably have some percentages in the elections on October 2^nd, they will not be able to create a majority in parliament or a government, must necessarily sit down at a round table and say: Wait, we have 5% common things, let's make a cabinet, fulfill those 5% common things, and then see if we can work together. By the way, a year ago, before one of the elections - if I'm not mistaken, it was last March or April, I suggested it in the newspaper "24 Chasa". Then many people jumped up. Going back to the round table in 1990 in Bulgaria and 1989 in Poland, which resolved many of the contradictions and allowed the political systems to emerge without clashes, blood, and to get their countries out of the centralized communist system to the market modern system we currently live in. Then this proposal or this project was not accepted. I think there should be a round table, everyone should sit down. It's not that hard. This is how I do business every day - we sit down with a client or a partner, discuss, find common ground, and move forward so that we can deliver a product, provide a service.

Host: We need a complete transformation of society, of the state.

Maxim: This is not a transformation. If the political forces sit down and say: “OK, we have five common goals and 40 others that divide us - let's fulfill these common 5 goals together”, it will be a giant example for the whole society. People will stop fighting, they will stop hating each other.

Host: Here, you do it, i.e., you are setting an example. How are business leaders enforcing rules today, and are there any new trends we're seeing in this area?

Maxim: Well, in business this is a normal approach – to sit down even with a competitor. Even in those branch organizations in which we are united, we sit down every month together with our competitors and discuss the things that unite us. And business leaders can set good example by doing honest and open business. Twenty years ago, when I wrote Bulgaria's first Standard for Business Ethics, the one I gave Prince Charles 2002, I went around Bulgaria and visited all 27 regional town to promote it. The most common question I was asked was: “What is "business ethics". And then I came up with the short and, in my opinion, too clear definition: it is making profits transparently. We are in business to make profits, to invest, to pay salaries, to grow our companies. If we do it transparently, that means we do it ethically. Here, in this day and age, 2022, businesses have the wonderful opportunity to do their profits transparently.

Host: But they don't.

Maxim: Some do, some don't. For us at the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum, this is a law - to invest in the training and qualification of our employees, to have transparent reports, to pay, of course, all taxes and social insurances. These are things that have never occurred to us not to do and are not discussed. Yes, maybe there is business in the so-called gray area. By the way, every country, even the most developed economies such as Great Britain, France, Italy, America, have some 15-20% of businesses that are in the shadow economy, that do not issue documents, do not issue invoices, but there is nothing terrible about that. If 80% of the economy is clean and public, both correct and ethical, then some 20-30% can easily stay in the periphery. In Bulgaria it is the opposite - 30% are in the clean part and maybe 70% are in the gray, it just needs to be reversed. There must be an example, which we try to set in the Business Leaders Forum, and I think we are doing it successfully. There are several other organizations such as the American Chamber of Commerce, the Bulgarian-German Chamber of Commerce, the French Chamber of Commerce - last night I saw my friends from the French Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria. And these are associations with which we work together, and we appeal to have a transparent, ethical, honest business. And first is the example we give as people to the business, and second is the state, which should support us in every such undertaking.  I don’t remember any of the prime ministers to have had a honest meeting with representatives of the ethical business, what they would like and how they would like the state to help them. I hope that in October-November, if there is a better and more stable government, we will have a meeting to discuss this. But even the previous government of Kiril Petkov, which was composed of young, intelligent people, with many promises and with many hopes that they could communicate well with business, they all came from business – we didn’t meet. The one meeting we had with the Prime Minister at the American Chamber of Commerce was an exchange of empty talk and nothing concrete, which is not good. Between business and the state, there must be not only communication, but there must also be a great chemistry in which they can work and live together in the interest, of course, of us, the Bulgarians.

Host: Mr. Behar, what are your latest projects and what are you currently working on?

Maxim: Firstly, we work with many international clients, both old and new, who are constantly changing projects. We have several very big things we are preparing for Bulgaria, we are waiting to see if there will be a government. I really wish we could actually have a meeting. Years ago, I organized a very successful conference called "Bulgaria: Business Up". I hope that with the new government we can have such a meeting so that business goes up. I'm having talks with the Ministry of Tourism, I really want Bulgaria to have an even better representation in the world. And it's not just tourism, because if Bulgaria makes huge, incredible attempts to put itself even better on the world map, that means investments, that means tourism as well. And I would very much like this logo, this slogan, with which I held a dozen conferences with Governor Bob Miller - "Bulgaria - Dream Area", to be turned into a national policy. I offered to the previous government to sell them this slogan, which is registered by me all over Europe - "Bulgaria - Dream Area", for 1 euro, but they never paid attention. I hope that we can at least enter in discussions with the new government on how to make Bulgaria even better place, so that we can have investment and a better image and have more tourists from abroad.

 

Listen the interview here.