5% of Employable Bulgarians Have Started Own Business

Business | August 5, 2012, Sunday // 16:26
Bulgaria: 5% of Employable Bulgarians Have Started Own Business 5% of the employable Bulgarians have their own business, according to an annual report of the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency (BSMEPA). File photo

Against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis, only 5% of the employable Bulgarians have their own business, according to an annual report of the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency (BSMEPA).

BSMEPA reveals that the major problems entrepreneurial Bulgarians face are the difficult access to financing and intercompany indebtedness.

There are 353 000 companies in Bulgaria, 92% of them sole traders with a staff of up to 10 people.

The number of such companies, who employ 620 000 of Bulgaria's employable population of nearly 2 million, has dropped by 1% in a year, according to BSMEPA.

40% of the small companies in Bulgaria operate in the sphere of services.

Every fourth company in Bulgaria has overdue payments to a supplier or a subcontractor, which occasionally leads to chain bankruptcies of several small firms.

62% of the small companies in Bulgaria are developed using the personal resources of their owner.

20% of the companies have a bank loan, working capital loan or an overdraft.

27% of the companies have started business using loans from relatives and friends.

BSMEPA is preparing legal amendments aimed at supporting small-scale entrepreneurs and companies

"Our wish is to get an exemption from profit tax for resources re-invested in innovations and energy efficiency. As regards access to public procurement, we suggest setting an obligatory quota of public procurement deals which large-scale companies will be required to assign to small and medium-sized enterprises," says Mariyana Velkova, Executive Director of BSMEPA.

At present, 54% of Bulgarian entrepreneurs developing small and medium-sized firms fear bankruptcy,

Only 3% of small companies (with a staff of up to 10) have won EU funding, mostly because they find it impossible to provide a sufficient amount of their own resources for co-financing.

As regards medium-sized enterprises, which have a staff of up to 250 and much higher turnovers, every fourth company has won an EU-funded project, according to BSMEPA data.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

Business » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency, BSMEPA, small and medium-sized enterprises

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria