Our goal is to restructure the Bulgarian export towards medium and highly technological products.
“Our efforts are directed to mainly support the Bulgarian companies to develop new markets and to participate into different projects as suppliers, contractors and subcontractors. Our priorities are the development and the opening to the foreign markets of the small and middle-size companies,” said the Deputy Minister of the economy Lyuben Petrov during the round table discussions on the topic “The international trade stimulation – factor for economical prosperity” hold in the frame of the Bulgarian economical forum. In his opinion Bulgaria is following a consistent commercial and foreign trade policy directed to attract foreign investments and to improve the competitiveness of the Bulgarian production and export. As a result our country moved two positions up and is actually placed on the 63rd position in the list of the worldwide exporting countries.
According to the preliminary data during the first nine months of the 2014 our export decreased by 2.1% regarding the same period of the previous year, mentioned the Deputy Minister Petrov. He explained that this reduction is mainly due to the export to third countries and especially to the countries from East Europe, Russia and Ukraine, and to the Middle East countries. Our export to the EU countries remains at the previous level of 2.6% , as well as our export to Asia, which is at the level of 16.3%. There is a possibility to increase the presence of the Bulgarian goods on the markets of Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
In accordance with the Mr. Petrov speech our country is still exporting products with lower added value mainly, but the part of the goods produced by the high-technology sector is showing improved dynamics. “The machines and equipment occupy the 3rd place in the country’s export list and represent a big part, and the chemical industry products occupy the 6th place. The export position of the transport equipment has also improved”, he added.
“Our goal is to restructure our export towards medium and high-technological products. Our efforts are directed to give priority to the development of export-oriented sectors, ensuring high added value and better competitiveness of our economy”, declared Lyuben Petrov. He described the measures to boost the Bulgarian export, mentioning the improvement of the foreign trade capacity of the Bulgarian companies, the intentions to facilitate the export credit and export insurance, to boost the advertisement of the Bulgarian economic and export potential abroad and to support of the Bulgarian companies to present their goods and services on the international markets.
Another accent in the activity of the Ministry of Economy is the innovation, especially the creation of better conditions for implementation of the scientific results in the industry. “The National innovation fund, the projects Tehnostart, START and Brandiko are developed to support the investments in high-technological and innovative productions aiming to increase the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy on the international markets” said the Deputy Minister.
As a conclusion Mr. Petrov ensured that the Ministry of Economy conducts a policy of active dialogue with the business actors to help attract the investments and enlarge the presence of Bulgarian goods and services on the foreign markets.