On 19 September 2006 the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy and Energy and ARC Fund held a press conference to present the results from a survey on The Readiness of Bulgarian SMEs for Participation in the EU Structural Funds’ Programs. The survey was carried out by marketing and social research agency Vitosha Research. According to the results 35.4% of the Bulgarian SMEs would seek support for their investment projects from the Structural Funds, mainly for technological upgrade, meeting EU standards, as well as for innovation projects such as development of new products, technologies and services. The lack of appropriate financial instruments and information are regarded as the main barriers for meeting the European requirements by the Bulgarian SMEs. The survey reveals that the Bulgarian small business is still very weakly represented on international markets, and only 12% of the SMEs assess their technological equipment as new and modern.
The Bulgarian SMEs Readiness for the EU Structural Funds, presentation by Mr. Ruslan Stefanov, Senior Advisor at ARC Fund (MS Power Point, 941 КВ, in Bulgarian)
Full text of the report (Adobe PDF, 1.08 MB, in Bulgarian)
