Bulgarian President Cites SMEs as Exclusive Priority

A mere 1000 (0.8%) of the total of 350 000 companies re-registered in Bulgaria's Trade Register are big (total headcount of 250+), the remaining ones being small and middle-sized, according to Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev.

The trend was highlighted Thursday at a meeting of the Economic Development and Social Policy Council at the President's Office held under the motto ""Inclusive growth: Employment and Social Inclusion".

The participants in the meeting agreed on the notion of small and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs) being the backbone of all economies.

In his opening speech, Plevneliev emphasized the role of SMEs in Bulgaria, adding that 70% of the country's employed population was working at such companies.

"This comes to show us that SMEs are an exclusive priority because it is precisely SMEs that generate employment and economic opportunities on a national and also on a global scale," he stated.

Kamen Kolev, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) announced that Bulgaria had a very low efficiency of public spending.

Stressing Bulgaria's backwardness in the sphere, Kolev called for equal access to SMEs.

Plevneliev also drew attention to the need to create mechanisms and programs to support SMEs, saying that the InvestBulgaria Agency and the Bulgarian Development Bank could get down to the task.

Vasil Velev, Chair of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), also spoke about the problems of SMEs.

He argued that SMEs were being sidelined from a number of projects and were often unable to participate in public procurement tendering because they could not meet the eligibility criteria.

Velev insisted that the solution to the latter problem was the creation of clusters.