SERBUL PROJECT BULGARIA Sonya ENILOVA Fani SEMERDZHIEVATSIKOVA

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SERBUL PROJECT BULGARIASonya
ENILOVAFani SEMERDZHIEVA-TSIKOVA
SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME FP6-2004-INNOV-4

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SOUTHEAST REGION OF BULGARIA

• Area - 14,600 sq. km, 13 of the area of the
  country
• Consists of three administrative districts
  Bourgas, Sliven and Yambol
• Borders Turkey to the south and the Black sea to
  the east
• Population - 782 000 inhabitants 10 of the
  population in the country
• Produces 8.8 of the Bulgarian GDP
• Main economic sectors tourism, agriculture,
  industry.

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SOUTHEAST REGION OF BULGARIA
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SOUTHEAST REGION OF BULGARIA

• Industry 1/4 of the total employment and is
  dominated by SMEs
• Main industrial sectors - food and drinks
  production, textiles, petrochemical products, and
  wood processing
• Agriculture - 18.8 of the regional GDP and 6 of
  the employment - grapes, fruit and corn cattle
  breeding
• Fishery and aquaculture - along the coastline

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SOUTHEAST REGION OF BULGARIA TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

• Tourism - the most rapidly developing sector of
  the regional economy

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SOUTHEAST REGION OF BULGARIA TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

• 250 cultural monuments
• 1 town in the list of UNESCO world cultural
  heritage
• Archaeological sites
• Traditions, crafts, folk, museums, cuisine
• Plenty of holyday villages, resorts, parks,
  villas, hotels
• 3 million tourists annually

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Holiday by the sea
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Project Regional Innovation Strategy
for the Southeast region of Bulgaria

• Financed by DG XIII of the Commission of the
  European Communities under the 6th Framework
  Programme FP-2004-INNOV-4 Research and Innovation
• Duration from June 2005 till January 2008
• Project goal To increase the competitiveness of
  the region in terms of innovative development by
  creating innovative culture as a locomotive for
  efficient policy making within the Southeast
  planning region of Bulgaria

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Project Regional Innovation Strategy for
the Southeast region of Bulgaria

• Participants
• Agency for Regional Development and Innovation
  ARDI, Bulgaria
• Business Innovation Centre of Epirus Greece
• Balearic Islands Government. Regional Ministry of
  Economy, Treasury and Innovation - Spain

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Objectives

• To create and develop innovative capacity
• To improve the capability of the regional
  business to implement innovations and benefit
  from them
• To create an active regional network that
  supports the establishment and development of
  working partnerships for innovation
• To support the successful integration of the
  South-East planning region of Bulgaria in the
  European Research Area

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SERBUL PROJECT

• The second objective aims at
• Stimulating the establishment of
  innovation-oriented clusters
• Supporting the development of innovative SMEs
• Supporting the establishment of spin-off entities

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Supporting the development of innovative SMEs

• Objectives
• To establish on-going co-operation and strong
  networking in the field of innovation promotion
  on regional, national and European level
• To promote business activities between the South
  East region and EU partner regions.

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Support of clusters establishment

• Clusters collaboration between companies in
  one and the same area
• Our aim to help to develop clusters in the
  following sectors
• Tourism
• Textile
• Transport

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Support of clusters establishment

• Activities
• Study the sectors in detail
• Selection of pilot clusters
• 1st stage of development of clusters

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Why do we support clusters?

• Direct advantages
• Better business transactions and investment
• Reduced expenses
• Increased income and more jobs created
• Indirect advantages
• Receive knowledge
• Compare with competitors
• Exchange of information that leads to innovations
  and improvement

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Why do we support clusters?

• Strengths
• Local chain of providers
• Specialised workforce
• Specialised services
• Abilities of choice

• Benefits
• Improved links
• High productivity
• Improved and quicker access
• Low prices, higher quality

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Why do we support clusters?

• Benefits
• Collective thinking, planning, influence
• Inter-company collaboration, networks
• Technology transfer and innovations
• Informal exchange of information and know how

• Strengths
• Cooperation
• Confidence
• Knowledge

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Next steps

• Define the pilot sectors for development of
  clusters
• Determine the contents of the cluster (size,
  concentration of companies, etc.)
• Determine the available complimentary services
  (distribution and export, financial institutions,
  specialized consultants, training and education,
  etc.
• Discover the linkages (where do companies solve
  their problems, whom they compare with, who do
  they trust and work in partnership, where their
  membership is, etc.

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The Approach

• Partnership approach at 3 levels
• International
• National
• Regional

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it is a non-stop activity
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Welcome for comments and advise

• ARDI
• BULGARIA
• 8000 BOURGAS
• 5b, TZAR PETER, STR.
• TEL./FAX [phone]
• e-mail ardi_at_mail.bg
• www.ardi-serp.org