Bulgaria's Severozapaden (Northwestern) is expectedly still EU's poorest region, according to newly released Eurostat data from 2009.

Northwestern Bulgaria's GDP per capita in 2009 was just 27% of the EU average in 2009. Severen Tsentralen (North-central), also in Bulgaria, has been ranked the bloc's second poorest with 29% of the average, together with Romania's Nord-Est.

Bulgaria's Southern-central and Northeastern are the fourth and fifth poorest regions respectively.

Severozapaden's GDP per inhabitant expressed in terms of purchasing power standards was 28% of the EU average in 2008.

The leading regions in the ranking of regional GDP per capita in 2009 were Inner London in the United Kingdom (332% of the average), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (266%), Bruxelles/Brussels in Belgium (223%), Hamburg in Germany (188%) and Bratislavsky kraj in Slovakia (178%).

Among the 39 regions exceeding the 125% level, eight were in Germany, five in the Netherlands, four each in Italy and Austria, three each in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom, two in Finland, one each in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, France, Slovakia and Sweden, as well as the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Eurostat cautioned that GDP figures for big cities can be artificially inflated by commuter inflows, which "push up production to a level that could not be achieved by the resident active population on its own."

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