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PThe economic, employment and other potential of northern Bulgaria can only be developed after full connectivity of the large regional centers in this part of the country, similar to those in southern Bulgaria, is guaranteed. This is one of the theses in the new development of the Institute of Market Economy (IME) for the economic and social development of northern Bulgaria, presented on Tuesday by IME senior researcher Petar Ganev and researcher Adrian Nikolov.
Southern Bulgaria was strongly withdrawn in its development only after the Trakia highway connected and facilitated connections between the capital, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Burgas, the main economic centers of southern Bulgaria. In addition, here we have the Maritsa highway, which facilitates the connection with our southern neighbor of Turkey, Ganev stressed.
“However, there is no such thing in northern Bulgaria. And the problem is not only on the Hemus highway, which after 2024 will make a horizontal connection from Sofia through Pleven, Lovech, Veliko Tarnovo and Shumen to Varna.
The vertical connection should be developed: the highway from Ruse to Veliko Tarnovo, the tunnel under Shipka, the Vidin-Botevgrad highway and, why not, the “Black Sea” highway, which will connect the two main economic centers of the sea: Varna and Bourgas said.
According to Ganev, the Danube River’s transport potential is currently underutilized.
“Until now, we have always looked at the river in terms of how many bridges there will be to cross it, but it has great potential for making transport connections from Vidin to Silistra. And this is not used to the maximum and not in all seasons of the year, “he said.
Currently, Varna weighs more economically on the map of northern Bulgaria. For example, the gross domestic product of the Varna district is three times higher than the corresponding indicator for Ruse, Veliko Tarnovo, Pleven and Vratsa and four and even five times higher than that of the other districts in northern Bulgaria. The GDP produced in Vidin is even seven times that of Varna, according to data from the IME.
In terms of gross value added of the economy, the situation is almost the same, although here Ruse, Veliko Tarnovo, Gabrovo and Vratsa may compete somewhat with Varna.
In Vratsa, this is definitely due to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, Ganev said.
But if you look only at the gross value added of services, where economists rank both tourism and the information technology sector, things definitely don’t look like this. Here Varna is the undisputed leader of Northern Bulgaria as it has developed tourism and high technology, and Vratsa is far behind.
If we look at the gross value added in services, immediately after Varna is Veliko Tarnovo, then comes Ruse, although in terms of population it is larger than Tarnovo, only Pleven, Gabrovo, etc. According to Ganev, this is due to the level of education in the Veliko Tarnovo district, which allows the information technology sector to develop here, although the district cannot be compared to the capital Varna and Plovdiv in this regard. .
In the Veliko Tarnovo district, for example, the share of people with secondary and vocational education in the labor market is highest in northern Bulgaria, the share of people with primary education is the lowest and the share of university graduates is only slightly less than in Ruse.
The employment dynamics in the IT sector in Northern Bulgaria also shows interesting trends.
The worst expected in this regard is the Northwest Planning Region, where according to the latest data from the IT sector only 1,121 people are employed, given that this industry in Bulgaria employs just over 100,000 people, receiving the highest salaries.
Also, as expected, the majority are employed in high-tech in the Northeast region, mainly due to Varna: 4503 people.
The north-central region is somewhere in between the other two in terms of number of employees in this sector: 2,087, and they are mainly concentrated in Veliko Tarnovo and Ruse.
The north central region and the northeast are relatively
well on the salary card in our country. Its growth between 2013 and 2016 was slower: on average, between BGN 100 and 150 per year. The real growth of 200-300 BGN per year occurred only in the last 2-3 years. Currently, although they do not lead in terms of average salary in Bulgaria, in both planning regions they exceed BGN 1,000 (the main one is the Sofia city district with an average salary of BGN 1,832).
The Northwest Planning Region is one of the few in the country where the average salary is less than BGN 1,000.
It is BGN 988. The number is mainly due to the Vratsa district, where the average salary is just over BGN 1,200, due to the employees of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant. In fact, the Vratsa district has been the third largest country in terms of wages for years, after the city of Sofia and the district of Sofia, and according to the data of the IME it will keep this place in pandemic 2020. According to the researchers from the institute, this is definitely due to salaries at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, without which the average salary in the district would be much lower.
In 10 years, the North lost a fifth of its population and the Vidin region lost a quarter.
Over the past 10 years, between 2009 and 2019, Northern Bulgaria has lost a fifth of its population, and especially the Vidin region, a quarter. This was reported by the Market Economy Institute during the presentation of the regional economic development of northern Bulgaria.
In northern Bulgaria, only Varna during this period has population growth, but it is not natural but mechanical growth. This is a phenomenon that accompanies all major regional cities in Bulgaria: in search of livelihoods, people from smaller towns and cities turn to them, and from the regional centers themselves there is a large migration to the capital.
The IME data is up to the end of 2019 and it is possible that when the census passes this fall, it will turn out that in the conditions of the pandemic in 2020, other areas of northern Bulgaria have a mechanical increase. Otherwise, the available data shows that Vidin, Vratsa and Montana do not even have a mechanical increase in population, said IME principal investigator Peter Ganev. In principle, there is no district in Bulgaria in which there is a natural increase, but the worst situation is Vidin, where each year in the latter 16% of the population is lost. These processes, the depopulation of Vidin and the increase in mechanical growth towards Varna, have always existed, but have intensified especially after 2012.
most likely as a consequence of the global financial and economic crisis and have further intensified in the coming years. With the exception of Varna, there is no other district in northern Bulgaria that has been overlooked by depopulation. The aging of the population is the main economic challenge in Bulgaria and, in this respect, the north of Bulgaria is definitely in a worse position than the south. There is no area here in which the population over 70 is less than 10%, and in some of them it is significantly higher as a proportion of the total. Vidin, for example, has an absolute record with 23% of the population over 70, followed by Gabrovo with 22% and Lovech with 20%. Varna and Dobrich have the lowest odds.
At the same time, only Varna and Targovishte have a population of 10% in the lowest age group, up to 10 years. Here, too, Vidin is the worst with only 7% children, and also Gabrovo, where children are about as much as the proportion of the population.
In terms of the availability of vocational schools, the north of Bulgaria is only slightly lower than the south, which gives the impression that this sector of education is best developed in the northeast region. The reason is very simple: there are many agricultural schools, which fit the economic profile of districts such as Dobrich, Silistra, Targovishte, Shumen, as well as schools in the field of tourism in Varna and Dobrich.
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