site.btaBulgaria's Export Is Slow to Restructure and Help Country Shed "EU's Poorest Member" Tag - Expert

Sofia, July 27 (BTA) - Bulgarian export is too slow to
restructure and raw materials and materials for further
processing continue to havea  share that is too big to help this
 country shed the "EU's poorest member" tag, according to
Vesselin Iliev, director for foreign trade cooperation at the
Bulgarian Industrial Association. His analysis looks at
Bulgaria's place in global export in 2020.

He says this country seems to have lost the velocity of the
pre-accession period and the early years of EU membership, and
new instruments are needed to change that. He believes these
instruments should be focused on the innovative companies show
big growth and offer goods and services with high and very high
value added.

The range of goods with higher value added broadens and their
export is not as influenced by the exchange rate of the US
dollar and the price of energy sources and raw materials as the
goods with low value added. The export of such goods makes up 24
 per cent of the total export. Special products are not included
 here.

Raw materials, energy sources and minimally processed materials
continued to make up 31-32 per cent of the export in 2020.

The key markets for the Bulgarian commodities with high value
added are the large economies of the EU where they are used and
exported across the world, says the analysis. Most often, the
Bulgarian producers export to the developed economies as
subcontractors of large companies and are included in the global
 supply chains.
  
The increased competitiveness is largely due to the
international companies in Bulgaria and to a lesser extent to
local companies.

Bulgarian export totalled 31.9 billion US dollars in 2020, which
 is a decrease from the 33.4 billion in 2019 and 33.7 billion in
 2018. And yet Bulgaria moved up to the 58th place of global
exporters (against 60th place in 2019 and 64th in 2018).
    
The decline in the dollar value of export from 2019 is 4.4 per
cent but it is a growth of 20 per cent for a five-year period.

This comes on the background of a 7 per cent decrease of global
import and a commulative growth of 3 per cent for the five-year
period, which means that Bulgaria continues to gain ground on
the global markets, Iliev comments.

Based on mirror data, Bulgarian export of defencegoods was worth
 at least 615 million US dollars. A number of countries which
are a market for Bulgarian special prodicts, refuse to provide
information about their trade, which means that the real export
is much bigger, says Iliev. He recalls that the export of
special products was estimated at 560 million dollars in 2019,
780 million in 2018 and 1.2 billion in 2017.
    
The commodities where Bulgaria is among the global market
leaders, remain more or less unchanged. This country still holds
 19.9 per cent of the global market for duck liver despite a
significant drop in export. It has a 16.4 per cent of the global
 market for Maraschino cherries, 14.9 per cent of the brass
sheet market, 14.1 per cent of the market for break tubes and 14
 per cent of the market for hydraulic turbines and regulators.
NV/LN/