A public discussion on the Economic profile of the South West Planning Region was held on 26th April 2006 in Sofia at the premises of the National Center for Territorial Development, 16-20 Alabin Str. The event was organized jointly by ARC Fund and the District Administration of Sofia, and the Center for the Study of Democracy, and had the purpose to dispute and comment the draft of the Economic profile of the South West Planning region, elaborated by ARC Fund’s and CSD’s experts on the basis of desk research of a number of existing policy papers, strategies and overviews such as the regional development plans, reports on the socio-economic, scientific, cultural and demographic situation in the region and many others.
Representatives of the regional governor’s administration of Sofia-city, Sofia-region, and Pernik, the municipalities in the towns of Godetch, Nevestino, Tchavdar, Sofia-municipality, Svoge, Dolna banya, Kotcherinovo, Slivnitsa, Dragoman, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, National center for Agricultural Sciences, Bulgarian Industrial Association, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Association of automatics and informatics, Foundation “GIS Transfer Center”, National Network for Business Development, BARDA presented their comments and recommendations for enriching the regional analyses with more specific data and made suggestions on which provisional priority sectors at municipalities’ level could be subject to further in-depth analysis from the innovation perspective.
The development of the Economic profile of the region is part of the preparatory stage of the RIS BRIDGE initiative which will result in the development of the Innovation Strategy of the South West Planning Region. The discussion was intended to bring together regional stakeholders who were expected to contribute to the finalisation of the regional economic profile which will be the grounds for identifying the priority economic sectors of the region that will be subject to detailed surveys and analyses from the innovation perspective over the next project stage.
The RIS BRIDGE initiative has as its main objective capacity-building in the South West Planning Region intended to prepare the region to benefit from and work with the Structural Funds by proposing mechanisms for innovation-driven regional development. This will be based on analysis of the innovation potential of the region, on the Regional Innovation Strategy and the respective Action Plans – one for the city of Sofia and one for the Rest of the region – which will contain specific measures for focused development of the sectors with highest innovative potential in the region.
Presentation of ARC Fund activities (only in Bulgarian, 144 KB, ppt)
Presentation of the role of RIS initiatives for regional development (only in Bulgarian, 112 KB, ppt)
Presentation of RIS BRIDGE initiative (only in Bulgarian; 192 KB, ppt )
Presentation of the analytical report (only in Bulgarian,496 KB , ppt)
For further information please refer to:
Ms Christina Nedeva
Ms Borislava Severova
