Asked to describe the current state of Bulgarian car parts manufacturers, Ognyan Vassilev, quality control director at electronics manufacturer EPIQ Electronic Assembly, relates an African proverb.

"Every morning, the antelope wakes up knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be eaten. Every morning, the lion wakes up knowing that it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve."

"The company’s success on the market nowadays depends on how fast we work and the quality of the product. Unless we improve ourselves, we will soon stop being good," he says.

The company owns three plants in Botevgrad in central Bulgaria, which account for two thirds of the manufacturing in the group, the rest spread over facilities in China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Mexico.

So far, it has invested more than 20 million euro in Bulgarian operations and its revenue for 2008 topped 268 million leva. One of the few high-tech investments in Bulgaria, the local subsidiary has expanded rapidly and is often hailed as an example of good management practices.

But even EPIQ could not avoid being affected by the economic slowdown. In early January, two production facilities had to switch to employing its workers part-time, which resulted in a salary cut of 30 per cent, on average. The direct reason, however, is not the economic crisis, but falling quantities of goods from subcontractors.

"We have made very few staff redundant since January. We prefer to continue paying our employees even if they are not employed full-time and keep them with the company," EPIQ said. "Over the past several months we have had unexpectedly large orders from some of our customers and we expect that in the second half of the year, the market situation will improve. Still, we will recover to where we were before the recession struck only in a year or two."

Two other major car parts manufacturers in Bulgaria – French firm Montupet, which has a production facility in Rousse, and Japan’s Yazaki in Yambol – do not seem greatly affected and are not complaining about a lack of new orders. Montupet’s plant in Rousse started several months ago making engine cylinder heads for Dacia as part of a long-term contract with Renault, the majority shareholder in the Romanian car maker.

Quality control testing prior to the launch of production took five months, human resources manager Ivelin Dimitrov said. The company is now quality testing the production cycle of engine parts that would be manufactured for Renault and Audi.

Yazaki, too, relies heavily on a strategic partner. At the start of the year, the company began production of cables for the Renault Scenic. It also makes all the wiring that goes into different versions of the Renault Megane. "Both models are highly sought after in Europe and since February we have seen our orders double," general manager Uwe Abraham said. Abraham said he expected Yazaki’s turnover in Bulgaria to rise from 18 million euro in 2008 to 53 million euro in 2009. The company will even hire additional staff, increasing its payroll from 2850 to 3000 over coming months.