The World Bank Expands its Operations One Year After Opening its Sofia Office

The World Bank intends to expand its office in Sofia and add new services such as corporate security, accounting, human resources and public procurement to its operations in the city. The announcement was made at a meeting of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers.

Due to its plans for more activities in the country, the bank will lease 650 square metres of office space in addition to the 4,000 square metres rented in January in the Advance Business Center II building currently under construction by the Polish company GTC near the Business Park in the Mladost neighborhood. 

The agreement on the World Bank’s entry into Bulgaria was signed just a year ago after a long process of evaluating the environment in several competing locations on criteria such as stability, quality of the IT infrastructure, advanced technology sector, competences of the labor force. Thus, Sofia became the group’s second shared services center after the one in Chennai, India, which opened in 2001. At the opening of the office, the bank announced its intention to hire 300 specialists in the city within five years.

The Advance Business Center II building should be completed by the end of this year. It will offer 17,500 square metres of Class A office space on 10 floors, a three-level underground parking garage, food courts and a LED video wall.