Sat, Feb 11 2012

Bulgaria drops 11 spots in Forbes' business climate list

Tue, Mar 24 2009 10:59 CET 2384 Views
Bulgaria drops 11 spots in Forbes' business climate list

Photo: Krassimir Yuskeseliev

Corruption and red tape dragged Bulgaria 11 places down in Forbes magazine’s 2009 Best Countries For Business list. Bulgaria ranked 55th on the list of 127 countries, graded on data collected by the World Bank, Heritage Foundation and the World Economic Forum, among others.

Bulgaria fared worse in attracting investment than other Southeastern European counties, such as Macedonia, Romania and Croatia. It also ranked the lowest among the 27 European Union member states.

The country gave up much of the ground it held last year due to worsening investment and business environment indicators such as corruption, bureaucracy, innovations and tax burden. It was ranked 105th in terms of bureaucratic bottleneck.

Forbes estimated Bulgaria has made progress in technologies and property protection, ranking first in terms of investor protection. The latter criterion examines the recourse held by minority shareholders in cases of corporate misdeed and is one of the conditions for favourable business climate, according to Forbes.

Bulgaria rated fairly well in terms of free trade and personal freedom too.

Source: Dnevnik

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