Bulgaria
Bulgaria’s stable economic, business and political environment has been a key factor in attracting foreign capital inflows throughout the last decade.
The main risk factors facing the Bulgarian economy and more specifically the public companies on the capital market are related to the uncertainty in the economy of Bulgaria and the EU – related to all the growing and highly perceptible inflationary pressures and the uncertainty caused by the military conflict in Eastern Europe.
The consistent macroeconomic policy, associated with stable economic growth has set Bulgaria as one of the favourable investment destinations in South Eastern Europe.
Some key macroeconomic and political indicators are:
- Currency board arrangement, introduced as a key element of the macroeconomic stabilisation programme in April 1997 (Bulgarian Lev is pegged to the Euro at rate of BGN 1.95583 per EUR 1)
- Stable GDP growth
- Comparatively low interest rates – 1.82% for February 2023
- Low levels of unemployment rate – 5.0 % for Q1 2022.
- NATO membership since 2 April 2004
- EU membership since January 2007
|
Key Country Indicators |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
|
GDP (EUR billion)
|
42.8 |
52.5 |
56.2 |
61.7 |
61.7 |
71.1 |
- |
|
Real GDP growth (%)
|
3.00% |
2.8% |
2.7% |
4.0% |
-4.0% |
7.6% |
- |
|
Annual inflation rate HICP (EUROSTAT) (%)
|
-1.3% |
-1.2% |
2.6% |
2.5% |
1.2% |
2.8% |
13.0% |
|
Unemployment rate (%)
|
9.1% |
7.2% |
6.2% |
5.2% |
6.1% |
5.3% |
- |
|
Average base interest rate (%)
|
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
1.30% |
Investor Relations