Bulgarian municipalities are expected to end 2011 owing about 150 million leva in debt, but with 100 million leva in receivables to be collected, the deputy executive director of the municipalities association Teodora Dacheva said on January 17.

If the preliminary figures hold true, that would be an improvement on past years, when municipalities collectively finished the year about 200 million leva in the red, she said.

Heavily indebted municipalities were in the process of renegotiating payment, in particular with utilities providers, Dacheva said, as quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA.

"Town halls should be more cautious in drafting their 2012 budgets, the deadline for which is end of February, and make every effort to collect outstanding receivables. "Let local administrations have pessimistic forecasts rather than optimistic, so that they do not accumulate new debts at the end of the year," Dacheva told the association's general meeting in Dobrich, as quoted by BTA