Bulgaria ranks near the bottom in global competitiveness, placing 58th out of 67 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2024 by the Swiss business school IMD, as reported by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD). This ranking indicates no progress since 2021 and a decline of 10 positions since 2020 and 20 since 2009.

Among Eastern European countries in the ranking, only Slovakia fares worse at 59th place. Leading the region are Lithuania (30th), Estonia (33rd), and Poland (41st), followed by Latvia (45th), Slovenia (46th), Greece (47th), Romania (50th), Croatia (51st), Turkey (53rd), and Hungary (54th). Colombia ranks just ahead of Bulgaria at 57th.

The top three spots for the most competitive economies are held by Singapore, Switzerland, and Denmark, while Ghana, Argentina, and Venezuela occupy the last three places.

Bulgaria saw a decline in infrastructure quality (from 54th to 59th) and business environment (from 62nd to 65th). However, economic efficiency improved for the third consecutive year (from 48th to 45th), mainly due to better macroeconomic indicators like growing real GDP per capita.

The CSD highlights Bulgaria's main challenges for 2024: long-term political instability, weak rule of law, endemic corruption, delayed Eurozone entry, potential loss of European funds, deteriorating business climate, low competitiveness and productivity, a high informal economy share, and being on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list. Additionally, Bulgaria faces issues like a decreasing population, shrinking labor market, poor infrastructure, and growing socio-economic inequalities.