News

Recent years have been turbulent for the economies of Burgas municipalities - in 2020 they suffered one of the worst blows of the crisis in the whole country, but in 2021 they return to rapid growth due to the recovery of tourism and the manufacturing industry. Among the main advantages of the district is a good demographic structure, but there are visible challenges in terms of education and skills, as well as in the quality of local schooling.

The districts of Lovech and Pleven suffer from the typical problems of the Northwest - an aging and declining population, relatively weak investment activity and a deteriorated educational structure. However, among some of the small municipalities in both regions there are positive examples of upward economic development in recent years.

For more than a decade, the Institute of Market Economics presents its unique in-depth study of the social and economic conditions of the regions in Bulgaria. The regional profiles of IME rely on 68 indicators which present an authentic picture of the 28 districts in the country aiming to focus the conversation on regional development and the challenges faced by local authorities. The focus of this year’s presentation falls on demographic conditions at a local level, which supersede the latest population census.

The new "Economic and Investment Profile of Sofia" (2022), prepared by the IME for the Sofia Investment Agency, was published today. The profile shows the rapid development of Sofia after the pandemic, with the capital's gross domestic product reaching over BGN 59 billion in 2021. Sofia concentrates more than half of the gross added value of services in the national economy, and the capital's share in the digital sector approaches 90% .

Bulgaria's regional development remains very uneven, and the recovery from the covid crisis in 2021 rearranges the ranking, especially among the least developed regions.

As at the end of every year, the minimum wage (MW), currently BGN 710, is once again the subject of arguments and political talk. The popular ideas this year are to raise it (up to BGN 780), to raise it by a lot (up to BGN 850) and a slightly newer one - to make it 50% of the average salary in the country (up to about BGN 870 data for Q3 2022). In the previous years, in addition to the ones mentioned, there were also more twisted proposals - to be determined by a complex of indicators, to be indexed with others, to be different by areas, by sectors, by professions, etc.

NSI publishes the population census data on daily labor migration, that is, on the location of the workplace of employed persons as of September 7, 2021. This snapshot of daily labor migration, which we receive once every ten years, provides very important information about economic processes in the country.