Evaluation of the competitiveness and the business environment in Bulgaria.

Abstract

Τhe present paper makes an assessment of Bulgaria's stance in terms of national competitiveness and business environment. The analysis is based on the datasets of two influential publications: Doing Business (World Bank) and the Global Competitiveness Report (World Economic Forum). The aim is to provide a coherent representation of key elements of national economy, while also discussing the issues that need improvement. The research has shown that Bulgaria as a new EU member can be seen as one of the catching-up countries with a competitive performance below the EU average. According to the results in the global ranking, Bulgaria still scores low in many important indicators of competitiveness while with respect to the Balkans it has better yields. However, the indicators regarding business environment show a mixed picture of Bulgaria. On the one hand it scores above EU27 average regarding starting a business and getting credit while on the other hand Bulgaria scores below average in the rest of the pillars. The same situation is also valid for the Balkans region where nevertheless the results indicate a better performance of the country in the majority of the sectors. Thus, taking into consideration the results, this paper also addresses policy insights for promoting entrepreneurship and enhancing Bulgaria's competitiveness.