site.btaIT Sector in Bulgaria Has Been Developing Exceptionally Fast in Recent Years, President Plevneliev Says

IT Sector in Bulgaria Has Been Developing Exceptionally Fast in Recent Years, President Plevneliev Says

Plovdiv, Southern Bulgaria, September 10 (BTA) - The IT sector in Bulgaria has been developing exceptionally fast in recent years, while Plovdiv is one of this country's and the region's fastest growing centres for investments in the high-tech industries, said here on Thursday President Rosen Plevneliev during the opening of the Second National Outsourcing Conference.

Plevneliev said that software industry currently forms 1.74 per cent of Bulgaria's GDP, with 60 per cent of sales in the sector being exports to the US, Canada and Western Europe. Bulgarian IT companies have registered revenue growth of 600 per cent in the past ten years, the President noted. There are a total of 17,000 jobs in the sector as of right now, which is some 12,000 more than in 2005. "We cover the whole sector and we can do everything from soup to nuts, there are no secrets for us," Plevneliev said. He also recalled that 90 per cent of those employed in the sector are under 35 and 80 per cent of them speak foreign languages.

President Plevneliev described Sofia and Plovdiv as leaders in the development of the IT sector in Bulgaria, adding that 80 companies with over 5,000 jobs are already functioning in Plovdiv. This is no coincidence, as Plovdiv has an educational system with over 40,000 students and is located where European and global corridors cross.

Outsourcing is developing dynamically and in just one year, Bulgaria has climbed 11 places in the international charts for the most attractive outsourcing destinations on the planet, Plevneliev went on to say. "As President I stand behind Bulgaria's big goal to establish itself as a regional hub for the development of information technologies," he noted.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Roumyana Buchvarova described this as the basis of Bulgaria's progress and a sign for the direction things should move from now on. She noted that Bulgaria currently ranks 9th out of 51 countries in terms of being an attractive destination for the outsourcing business. The Deputy PM said that her team is making efforts to implement the idea of issuing the so called blue cards, which will allow the IT outsourcing sector to hire foreign experts. The national task is to create the conditions to train at least 30,000 specialists in the high-technologies sector, Buchvarova added.

Representatives of over 100 companies in the IT and outsourcing industries attended the forum.