{"id":10688,"date":"2018-03-12T12:43:09","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T10:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/?p=10688"},"modified":"2018-03-12T13:47:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T11:47:37","slug":"over-80-of-the-automotive-companies-in-bulgaria-plan-to-expand-further","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/over-80-of-the-automotive-companies-in-bulgaria-plan-to-expand-further\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 80% of the Automotive Companies in Bulgaria Plan to Expand Further"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10637 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168.jpg 500w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168-223x146.jpg 223w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168-50x33.jpg 50w, https:\/\/investsofia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/shutterstock_196631168-114x75.jpg 114w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/>The share of the automotive sector in Bulgaria in gross value added is 3.6% and has increased over the last 10 years more than 4 times, shows the second Research of the automotive industry in Bulgaria, jointly conducted by Automotive Cluster Bulgaria, Colliers and PwC. The automotive companies are now more than 130 and employ more than 37,000 people. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Main highlights of the report<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 70% of the investors expect growth of revenue in 2018<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 55% of the employers in the automotive sector consider an increase in the number of employees<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 68% of the automotive companies have plans to increase investments in equipment<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Investors show willingness for expansion of their companies not only within their current location (53%), but also in other locations in Bulgaria (32%).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Over 10% of the companies, participated in the survey, own more than one plant on the territory of the country and over 80% plan to expand further. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The total revenue generated by the automotive industry in 2016 was close to \u20ac 2.5 billion <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Over 50% of the companies have more than 250 employees and one-third of them \u2013 over 1000.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Automotive companies are located in all regions of the country, with a higher concentration in Southern Bulgaria. The companies operating on the territory of Bulgaria, produce components for well-known international automotive brands &#8211; 90% of all airbag sensors for European manufacturers are produced in our country and that Bulgaria produces components for all the world&#8217;s largest manufacturers, including Tesla. To further strengthen growth, companies\u2019 managers plan to invest in development and implementation of new projects\/products leading to technological innovations. Currently, over 40% of the companies, which took part in the survey, perform research &amp; development (R&amp;D) activities, related to system and application software development, automation of manufacturing, reduction of the weight of manufactured components for decreasing the levels of emissions in the automotive industry and others, in addition to production. Positive examples of R&amp;D centers in Bulgaria are the American \u201cVisteon\u201d and \u201cSensata Technologies\u201d, as well as the German \u201eBehr-Hella Thermocontrol\u201c (BHTC). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Automotive companies plan to establish direct liason between business and university career centers, as well as setting up dual education classes, supporting the automotive business. The main challenges for the automotive industry, according to respondents, are bureaucracy, infrastructure, the legal system and the imbalance between demand and supply on the labor market. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Full results from the survey, forecasts, and interviews with leading companies\u2019 managers in the sector are <a href=\"http:\/\/colliers.bg\/newsletter\/e-newsletters\/Colliers_Market_reports\/H2-2017\/Automotive-report_EN.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published at Colliers\u2019 website<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The share of the automotive sector in Bulgaria in gross value added is 3.6% and has increased over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}