Harrie Niemeijer came to Bulgaria a year and half ago, to set up a furniture factory for the Dutch company Bylsma in Lovech, under the name Belsma furniture EOOD. Having expanded as far as possible within the Netherlands, the company (which produces tables, chairs and cabinets) set its sights to Eastern Europe. They asked Niemeijer, who had previous experience working in countries in the region with his industrial  IT company, to take part in the venture and he accepted the challenge.

Initially, Romania was chosen as the location for the new factory, but, says Niemeijer, they ran across problems trying to set up a business there. The move to Bulgaria came about by chance. Some colleagues were in Croatia at the time and they decided to meet up and visit Bulgaria. "We travelled around by car, and I thought: `hey, why not Bulgaria?'". It offered the "opportunity", the "place", and the "people". They found a suitable property and bought it from the old Balkan company. "I knew that I had about six months building time - that's not a lot." Then there were considerations such as licences, which are "very difficult to get here", but Niemeijer was aware of this fact when he made the decision to locate the factory in Bulgaria, and remained undeterred."I had a good feeling; it was just a feeling about the municipality Lovech which I was dealing with".

Of the move into Eastern Europe, Niemeijer says that one of their biggest competitors in the future will be China: "For me it is a challenging start to beat the Chinese in the future and keep the factory in Holland through Bulgaria. So, the automation grade is high and our target is organisation by efficiency and logistics."

As with the setting up of any new business venture, the initial organisation was challenging. "Imagine: you are a stranger and you are sitting in your hotel and organising everything from your hotel room or a terrace." But, things progressed quickly. Construction started in October 2004. In January, they installed the equipment, and production started in March 2005. A year later, they had employed 80 people, which will grow at the end of the year to 120, and after that to more than 200.

The factory in Lovech produces cabinets and they have also started a special line producing designer furniture for  Rietveld by Rietveld, family of the famous designer and architect Egbert Rietveld. "The family decided to introduce small quantities of licensed furniture onto the market. And I'm very pleased that we can do this here in Bulgaria."

Belsma is still the only foreign investor in Lovech, where, he says, there are only two or three other big companies. "We are a small enterprise, we are not a huge company, or a big American company with 2000 people or whatever, and we also don't want to be that. The nice thing is that I think they are happy with this and we are happy with them," he says of their workforce.  At the beginning, it was difficult to find experienced personnel, so they invested in intensive training programmes. Now, he says, this has paid off and things are running smoothly because people have more and more expertise, and rather than going to work abroad they stay - not just because of the salaries, but because of the work culture: "We are paying in the European way of paying - with taxes, sickness leave, only a maximum of 40 hours a week and holiday time."

Niemeijer came to live in Lovech on a permanent basis a year ago. Before that, during the six-month construction period at the factory, he had been commuting between Bulgaria and Holland, spending 10 days in Lovech and four in Holland. This was heavy going - the travelling, the fact that he wanted to spend time with his three children - so they decided to move to Bulgaria permanently.

He even met his wife here, and they have been together for more than a year now.

Niemeijer is happy with his decision and has no intention of going to live back in Holland at the moment.

He says Bulgaria is somewhat of a "forgotten country", in Holland. People go on holiday to Turkey or Greece, but  the typical perception is that Bulgaria is very far away. When there is news about Bulgaria, in general it is negative, "about corruption, prostitution, criminals, you name it, and that's a pity - so that's the image, they think I'm only here in Sofia to party and that's it". But now, more and more of Niemeijer's  friends and colleagues are coming to visit and are pleasantly surprised.

Comparing the work ethics of the two countries, he comments how, under the old regime in Bulgaria, people would have jobs arranged depending on who they knew and that most  important thing was to be present at the job, what you did was secondary. "And you see, after the changes, in a lot of Bulgarian companies, the people  are still there and they don't work eight hours a day, they work 12, 14, 16 , 18 hours a day, just doing nothing. I say, `yeah, if I had to work 16 hours a day every week, I also wouldn't do anything anymore because it's impossible!' Let's work eight hours a day - hard - and actually do something."

The most challenging thing about  life in Bulgaria is lack of communication in the business environment. "It's really difficult to build up something. People have not learnt to communicate with each other, they are all kings and queens in their own area of  specialty. With a project like ours you have 40 or 50 specialists not communicating and I think this is one of the biggest problems in Bulgaria. It is not at the high level, it is not at the working level, it is the level between," he says. "For instance when I need maintenance on my power supply, I have to write a letter to everyone that we are turning off the electricity, but when one of these guys decides he wants do it himself, he just turns it off twice a week with no warning!"

Finally, there is the issue of corruption. "When we came to Bulgaria, we promised ourselves one thing: not to deal in corruption. If you do it one time, you are lost," says Niemeijer. "And we are not doing it, I think that it is good for the country that there are many more companies that don't give in to bribing, etc." He says that they are lucky because they have a good working relationship with the municipality, which can provide backup and is not corrupt. However, "sometimes it's very hard, we have had a situation two or three times where I really thought: `this is the end of the company because we are not going to pay, we have everything official and legal now'. I think everybody has to deal with it, but you don't have to give in to it, " he says.

However, this aside, Niemeijer enjoys the challenges involved with running a business in Bulgaria. "You are really an entrepreneur, you can really build up a company. Of course, there are a lot of rules and so on, and the law is changing every day, bureaucracy is enormous, but on the other hand it's also a challenge to fight against it, to fight with it. In countries like ours, it's already arranged and we have had all the experience, and you can see in Bulgaria they don't, so they are looking, trying this, trying that. It's nice to be in a system in which you have to be innovative, you must have strong nerves. In a positive way, it's a struggle, a battle."