News

In this year's edition of the IME study "Regional Profiles: Indicators of Development " 2025, the capital once again stands out as the undisputed leader in most categories of economic development in the regions. The concentration of investments (domestic and foreign), high salaries, and new companies means that Sofia is the only region with above-average values for some indicators. As a result, regions that are traditionally strong, usually with strong service and industrial sectors, are unable to stand out in the overall statistics.

The share of the population with health insurance at the national level is growing and exceeds 95%, which to some extent refutes the myth about low coverage and the large number of uninsured people burdening the healthcare system.

"Regional Profiles: Indicators of Development 2025" summarizes the current statistics for the 28 regions and tracks their development across a wide range of topics—from the economy, labor market, and investment to infrastructure, local finances, demographics, education, healthcare, security, environment, culture, and tourism. The indicators mainly cover 2024, with some sections also including data for 2025, which allows for reliable comparability between regions and tracking of trends over time.

How much has the standard of living of employees improved over the past ten years? Recently, there have been public claims of a slowdown in the growth of prosperity and even of a poverty increase. However, a review of the dynamics of real wages, after taking inflation into account, clearly shows that such claims are unfounded and even misleading.

The annual meeting of local authorities, organized by the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB), traditionally brings together all mayors in the country and is the largest event for local policies and trends in local self-government in Bulgaria. The meeting is also a kind of forum for open discussion between local and central authorities, with most of the ministers in the cabinet taking part in the forum.

In the debate on the financial situation of a local governments and the size of their own revenues, property taxes often come to the fore, mainly because of the outdated tax assessments and the lack of an adequate mechanism for updating them.

The study analyses the extent to which vocational education in Bulgaria meets the needs of the labour market. The Index of Correspondence between Vocational Education and the Structure of the Economy measures the ratio between the planned enrollment of students in vocational specialties and the distribution of employment of people with acquired professional qualifications in different sectors. The index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100 points, where higher values indicate a better match.