The President hosted the first meeting between Bulgarian start-up companies and representatives of the German business in Bulgaria

The start-up companies in Bulgaria create an environment so that for developing our culture we require transparency, accountability and responsibility upon performing the agreement between the citizens and the state. Your brave and non-standard business ideas prepare us for the future. This is what Head of State Rumen Radev said at his meeting with representatives of Bulgarian start-up companies and the German business in Bulgaria.

“We possess all necessary components for the development of the Bulgarian start-up ecosystem – people, knowledge, capital and ambition,” the President said. He also specified that 15,000 new high-quality jobs have been opened up in the past five years in the created more than 2,000 start-up companies. Sofia ranks among the top ten best cities for developing start-up entrepreneurship. The Head of State was adamant that it is necessary to pursue efficient state policies in the sphere of innovations and entrepreneurship to improve the environment for doing business in Bulgaria. In his opinion, innovations are reasonable if they develop and are sustainable.

Rumen Radev highlighted Germany’s role as Bulgaria’s biggest foreign-trade partner and strategic investor. “The German business brings along not only know-how, it brings along the positive model of good business practices, which contributes to improving the economic environment and business culture in Bulgaria,” he added. The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, H.E. Christoph Eichhorn, for his part, welcomed the idea for a sequence of meetings which should aim to establish successful business partnerships.

At the meeting, which was held on the initiative of the Head of State in partnership with the German-Bulgarian Industrial and Trade Chamber, seven start-up companies, which took part in the Start.Up! Germany initiative, presented their clever business ideas. The challenges that the Bulgarian start-up ecosystem has to cope with include ensuring a follow-up funding of the projects, and also the readiness of the central and local institutions to establish active partnerships with the start-up companies.