Bulgaria retained its 51^st position (above the world average) in the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum. A total of 140 countries are included in the report. It uses 98 indicators to assess the countries.

It is interesting to note that the former leader in the ranking Switzerland is replaced by the USA in the new ranking. Analysts also accentuate on the fact that Bulgaria is the Balkan leader in the global competitiveness ranking, followed by Romania (52^nd position), Greece (57^th), Turkey (61^st), Montenegro (71^st), Albania (76^th), Macedonia (84^th) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (91^st). The fact that competitiveness in Bulgaria is highest in the whole Balkan region means that this country’s economy has been developing well. The high competitiveness is mainly due to the development and the use of information and communication technologies. Worst performance was registered in the healthcare, financial system and administration fields.

The high competitiveness of the Bulgarian business means that the country’s economy has been growing and that the economic growth fully corresponds to the contemporary requirements-innovations, high technologies, digitalization, high added value. According to official statistics, Bulgaria’s export is among the main engines of economic growth which contributed to higher gross domestic product. The human capital is another factor that contributes to the high competitiveness of the economy. The number of employees in Bulgaria has decreased due to demographic and economic reasons, but there are still many high-qualified workers in this country. Taxes also influence the competitiveness of each national economy, because the prices of the final product depend to a certain extent on the tax rate. In Bulgaria the corporate tax rate is flat and stands at 10% which also helps the competitiveness of the economy.

It was no surprise that the experts from the World Economic Forum did not assess highly the Bulgarian administration, healthcare and financial system. The Bulgarian authorities have been trying to combat corruption in the country’s administration, but the results are still unsatisfactory. Bulgaria’s healthcare is poorly. That is why the government has been preparing a new set of solid reforms in this field.

The Bulgarian financial system was not assessed highly as well, which is a bit strange, because this country has been preparing recently for the forthcoming stress tests and audits by the European Central Bank in relation with Bulgaria’s official request to join the ERM 2 mechanism and later the Eurozone. Biggest problems were registered in the field of bad loans, but as a whole the financial experts believe that the Bulgarian banking and financial systems are stable and we cannot expect any bad surprises in this field. However, we should also note that the World Economic Forum uses the highest world standards when it makes assessments and rankings.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov