Bulgaria's Parliament has adopted long-anticipated changes to the Commercial Register Act extending by 6 months the legal deadline for the campaign to register anew all firms in the country.

Under the Commercial Register Act changes adopted in 2008, all active legal companies in Bulgaria are required to make new registration with the Registry Agency so that inactive and "ghost" firms can be eliminated from the entries.

With Friday's amendments, the deadline is extended from December 31, 2010, until June 30, 2011, based on the grounds that the initial three-year period was not sufficient to complete the registration campaign.

A little more than a month before the deadline some 300 000 firms had renewed their registration, in addition to 129 000 firms created after the changes were adopted in 2008. Almost 900 000 firms, however, have failed to do so.

The registration trends so far have largely confirmed forecasts by experts that only about one-fourth of the firms in Bulgaria are active.