A month before the end of 2020, we can safely say that it has become a kind of watershed between the world before and the world after Covid-19.

Transformation of entire industries around the world is already underway and this will inevitably have an increasingly tangible impact on what is happening in Bulgaria and on this country’s economy. Despite the current stagnation, there are serious growth prospects before the local and the foreign investments, especially in high value-added sectors.

“We live in times of uncertainty, but as for the high technologies, Covid-19 pandemic created more opportunities in this sector– Ivan Mihaylov, member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria, said in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. In general, the IT sector is not so affected. On the contrary, we are witnessing an opposite effect. Most IT companies, the automotive sector and other high value-added industries are planning to expand their production capacity and offer additional activities. Parent companies want to expand their business activities in Bulgaria, because the local business environment implies greater flexibility. Labor market is currently more aggregated unlike 2019 when we experienced certain difficulties. We talked about import of workforce and an overheated economy, but now we are witnessing a cooling and normalization effect without a drastic contraction in the segment of high value-added businesses. The outlook for 2021 shows a trend of retention in some businesses and expansion of others.”

Ivan Mihaylov notes that there has been an increase in the number of Bulgarians who have chosen to return and continue working in their home country.

“This is due to a number of reasons, influenced by the pandemic situation in the world, as well as by the online environment allowing people to work from anywhere in the world. Access to workforce is now more flexible, because the companies themselves acquired an attitude towards the fact that their staff can work from anywhere in the world, which is a good thing”

Bulgaria faced a significant shortage of qualified personnel due to the emigration of more than 2 million people. This has put the survival of some professions at risk. Covid-19 temporarily postponed the need of import of workforce, but after the end of the coronavirus pandemic the issue will be again on the agenda. That is why the authorities must continue looking for long-term solution to the problem. For now, the human resources market remains dynamic, the analyst said.

In his words, an initiative aimed at overcoming the difficulties created by the crisis in securing supplies and the labor market could be the nearshoring initiative. This is a key project between 14 bilateral chambers in Bulgaria, including AmCham Bulgaria which are cooperating with the Ministry of Economy and InvestBulgaria Agency, in order to position Bulgaria on the global market as the new top nearshoring destination.

The bilateral chambers of commerce in Bulgaria focused on two main multi-sectors – Mechatronics and Chemical Industry.

Along with the automotive industry, Bulgaria needs to deepen its development in areas such as biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, where there is serious potential for successful investments. In the next programming period of the multiannual financial framework 2021-2027, the EU is to allocate earmarked funds for investments in these areas. That is why, it is important for Bulgaria to take as much advantage of this opportunity as possible.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov