d, and
housing construction has fallen chronically short of the volume
planned--by as much as 25 percent in 1972. The consequent failure of the
anticipated output from new plants to materialize created shortages in
various areas, thereby affecting production and market supplies
adversely and necessitating revisions of the economic plans. In an
effort to minimize these difficulties, the government adopted various
administrative measures in 1971 and 1972, including the formulation of a
list of nationally important construction projects, direct supervision
of which was assumed by the Council of Ministers. The number of projects
included in the list for 1972 was variously reported as thirty-five and
thirty-nine out of a total of more than 3,000 projects. The listed
projects consisted mainly of plants for the production of industrial
materials.

BUDGET

The budget constitutes the basic financial plan of the country's
leadership. It is the monetary expression of the annual socioeconomic
plan and provides for the financial flows implicit in that plan. The
budget is comprehensive; it takes into account all aspects of the
economic, social, and cultural activities of the country. In line with
the government's policy of gradually placing economic trusts and their
branches on a self-financing basis, a progressively larger share of the
funds budgeted for the economy is being retained by the trusts rather
than channeled to the budget. The sums thus retained by economic
organization rose from about 3 billion leva in 1971 to a planned level
of more than 5 billion leva in 1973. Ultimate control over the use of
these funds, nevertheless, remains with the government, and their
disposition is subject to the provisions of the budget.

The national budget is formulated by the Ministry of Finance along lines
dictated by the BKP leadership and must be approved by the National
Assembly. As a rule only very minor modifications are made in the
process of legislative review. Budgets for local governments are
prepared as a part of the national budget; in 1972 and 1973 their total
amount was equivalent to about 17 percent of the overall national
budget. The Ministry of Finance is also responsible for ensuring the
scrupulous implementation of the budget. It is assisted in this task by
a nationwide network of state and local inspectors and by agents of the
banks. Actual budgetary results are directly affected by deviations from
the annual econom