"Bulgaria you say? For me this is the best professional experience I have had."
These are words of Luigi Salvadori, the 52-year-old Florence-born manager of Italian-Bulgarian Salvamed company based in the small southern Bulgarian town of Sandanski.
Salvadori has been in Bulgaria since 1994 and takes pride in the fact that he built the company in Bulgaria from scratch and that today it is the number one in its field - pharmaceuticals and bandages - in Eastern Europe.
The source of the company’s success was the fact that it has Italian-Bulgarian management, he says. "The professional and personal competition between different people and ways of thinking help improve business culture," he says.
"In these economic times Bulgarians are better able than Italians to accept new things. And because Bulgarians have a desire to improve and develop, it’s not difficult to stimulate them to do so," Salvadori says, adding that this is also possible because of standards in Bulgaria.
"Bulgarians are also willing to take part in all sorts of internal company activities, and having a group of people who follow the same direction is not difficult either, as it used to be in Italy in the 1960s".
Another advantage of Bulgarians, which should not be underestimated, is that they have the ability to achieve results quickly.
"When negotiations are on the way and rules are clearly explained, and these rules are being followed, results come easily and no bureaucracy can stop that," he says, and adds that the reliability of institutions reflects the reliability of the worker.
"In this globalised world, Bulgaria offers cheap labour, but not as cheap as in some other Eastern European countries, which not only allows cutting of costs but also makes possible hiring reliable and qualified workers".
Salvadori’s advice to those who want to start business in Bulgaria is to be careful with statements such as "the country still lacks the proper infrastructure and working with public administration sometimes could be difficult because of different mentality and bureaucracy and let’s not forget the difficulties of Bulgarian language," he says.
In this respect, an important issue for Italian companies in Bulgaria is their contact with various Italian organisations and associations operating in the country, namely the Consultative committee of Italian enterpreneurs in Bulgaria (Comitato Consultivo dell’Imprenditoria Italiana in Bulgaria – CCIIB). As a member of Italian employers’ federation - Confindustria, the CCIIB is a good bridge between the two countries when it comes to business activities, Salvadori says. For years, he has been a CCIIB member and on the board of various structures within Confindustria on local and national level.
Because of its location in Bulgaria and because entrepreneurship in other Balkan countries is not as developed as in Bulgaria, the CCIIB is to play an important role not only in Bulgaria but in the region as well, he says. "It will be the link between local companies and Italy’s industrial sector, Salvadori says.