Bulgaria's finance minister has announced that Value-Added Tax (VAT), which currently stands at 20%, could be cut to 16% by the end of the new center-right government in 2013. “The value-added tax will be reduced by 2% in 2011 and by another 2% over the next two years,” Simeon Dyankov said in an interview for Darik radio. The statement comes ten days after the proposal for gradual VAT reduction, which has drawn mixed responses in the country. The idea for reducing Value-Added Tax (VAT) in Bulgaria from its current 20 % rate by the end of 2010 was announced after Prime Minister Borisov's meeting with Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, who made this recommendation as a measure to fight the financial crisis. The country will apply in January this year to join the exchange-rate mechanism, the two-year currency stability test prior to euro adoption, and seek to switch to the common currency by 2013.