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Dear Partners and Friends,<\/p>\n
With 2020 around the corner, it’s important for us to s<\/span>potlight some of this year\u2019s a<\/span>chievements and to set <\/span>some of <\/span>our future goals. It was a year full of challenges, success stories, community building events and initiatives that aimed to put Sofia on the international map and to build a <\/span>stronger, more recognizable brand for the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here are some of the 2019 highlights.<\/span><\/p>\n Sofia\u2019s business environment had another year of growth. <\/span>The city remains the biggest regional economy in the country with about 40% of Bulgaria\u2019s GDP. <\/span>Sofia<\/span> had attracted \u20ac13 billion of foreign investments or about \u20ac 9 800 per capita <\/span>or<\/span> nearly three times the average for the country.<\/span><\/p>\n Overall, the prospects for the development of Sofia are positive. The city will most likely continue to concentrate an increasing share of the economic activity in the country due to its positive demographics and its leadership in the development of the fastest growing sectors such as the IT industry, outsourcing of business services and some manufacturing activities with relatively high added value.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sofia is well-positioned to develop some new forms of economic relations such as digital and shared economy services due to both the appropriate IT infrastructure and t<\/span>he abundance of<\/span> IT companies and specialists. T<\/span>he so-called <\/span>Creative Industries <\/span><\/i>have also been experiencing a rapid growth and development in recent years, and the creative companies and talent in the sector are mainly concentrated in Sofia<\/span>. <\/span>Trade, Transport, Storage<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Tourism <\/span><\/i>also have good development potential.<\/span><\/p>\n More detailed data, charts, analyses and trends can be found in our latest report <\/span>\u2018Sofia: Economic and Investment Profile 2019\u2019<\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#78142e” size=”1″ margin=”20″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again, we did our best to make the information about Sofia as a business destination and a wonderful place to live available in one place, to make it <\/span>easily<\/span> accessible and pleasing to the eye. We published our second edition of the Sofia Business Guide<\/a>, new reports with current data on <\/span>the<\/span> development of the <\/span>Start-up and Innovation Ecosystem in Sofia<\/span><\/a>, the <\/span>Manufacturing Industry<\/span><\/a>, the <\/span>Tourism and Air Transport<\/span><\/a> Market, the <\/span>Labor Market<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>the latest<\/span> Sofia Economic and Investment Profile<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> and the<\/span> first version of our first <\/span>sub-sector matrix, dedicated to Sofia\u2019s Gaming Studios<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n [su_spacer size=”10″][su_spacer size=”10″][\/su_spacer] Sofia is no longer an outsourcing destination and has <\/span>come a long way to develop into a place that not only provides high-quality products and services, but develops and invents them here<\/span>.<\/span> We see this change happening, and Sofia\u2019s 2019 success stories prove this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#78142e” size=”1″ margin=”20″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Financial Times<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Coursera<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>AtScale<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Bosch<\/a>, Hitachi Solutions<\/a><\/span>, <\/span>ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE <\/span><\/a>are just some of the international leaders that established their R&D centers in <\/span>Sofia in 2019.<\/span> Many Sofia-based companies got recognised for their locally developed but with global impact solutions – <\/span>StorPool Storage<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Klear<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Imperia Online<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Evrotrust technologies<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Rhyme Softworks<\/a>, <\/span>Black Sea Studios<\/span><\/a>, to name a few.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n N<\/span>ot by chance, Sofia was named ‘one corner of South-Eastern Europe\u2019s \u2018Silicon Valley\u201d<\/em><\/a>‘ by the Financial Times in\u00a0<\/span>Bulgaria attracts record tech investment<\/span> article, ‘<\/a><\/span>the growing fintech destinations in the CEE Region’<\/em>\u00a0by the<\/span> Austrian Trending Topics<\/span> and ‘a thriving startup region in Europe’<\/em><\/a> by the German national TV ZDF in its documentary series <\/span>PlanB<\/span> (Sofia starts at 16:30 min).<\/span><\/p>\n We tried not to miss a success story from Sofia. You can find news about setting up, expansions, investments, acquisitions and awards on our <\/span>dedicated webpage<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#78142e” size=”1″ margin=”20″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We value Sofia\u2019s huge potential and that\u2019s why, for <\/span>yet<\/span> another year in a row, we were telling the city\u2019s success stories abroad and were connecting with other communities and cities. We organised a number of business networking events, accepted invitations to present the strengths of <\/span>our<\/span> city during\u00a0 many local and international conferences and supported the companies that <\/span>participated<\/span> in <\/span>Accelerator Startup Sofia – <\/span><\/i>the pilot edition of the first municipal startup program<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Click on the pictures from the gallery below to see s<\/span>ome of the<\/span> key<\/span> \u201cSofia in the spotlights moments\u201d<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#78142e” size=”1″ margin=”20″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Probably one of our greatest achievements for the year 2019 is the finalization of the <\/span>Digital Transformation Strategy for the City of Sofia<\/a> – <\/span><\/i>an important step toward the digitalization as a process, encompassing not only <\/span>Sofia Municipality<\/span> and its services, but the entire urban environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The mission of the Strategy is: to turn Sofia into a market for digital products and services created by Sofia-based companies, <\/span>and<\/span> a platform for innovation;\u00a0 to open the public administration towards the citizens and the businesses; to improve services and quality of life.<\/span><\/p>\n Our team worked on the development of the Strategy together with over 100 experts, companies and organisations from Sofia and under the mentorship of European experts within the European Commission\u2019s <\/span>Digital Cities Challenge<\/span><\/i> program. As a result, Sofia, with the support of the Fund of Funds, signed <\/span>a contract with the European Investment Bank<\/span><\/a> for a grant of consultancy support for the development of the conceptual projects identified in the Strategy, as well as for the development of a methodology for the evaluation of projects related to digitalization and smart cities.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2020, we\u2019ll continue to expand our partner network <\/span>involved in Sofia\u2019s<\/span> digital transformation process. And we will work on the need to develop a city-wide data policy and to open certain datasets as a tool to foster innovation, avoid vendor-locking and involve Bulgarian start-ups and IT businesses in the city\u2019s digital transformation, using solutions created by Sofia-based companies.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Make sure to <\/span>stay up to date<\/span><\/a> on all industry, startup and business community news with our monthly newsletters, follow us on <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a> if you haven’t already. Sofia has great stories to tell and we\u2019d be glad to share them with you!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We would like to thank all of you who have been supporting us throughout the year! You helped us make this year just great! Let\u2019s make the next one even better!<\/b><\/p>\n [su_spacer][su_spacer size=”10″][\/su_spacer]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Partners and Friends, With 2020 around the corner, it’s important for us to spotlight some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":22177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22125","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=22125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investsofia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sofia in Figures<\/b><\/h4>\n
Our 2019 Reports<\/b><\/h4>\n
\nMore reports and guides will be released next year <\/span>to help entrepreneurs and investors interested in Sofia, as well as the fastest growing sectors in Sofia with the highest growth potential take shape and find the resources available to help them grow further. <\/span>Creative industries, Retail, Biotech, and Aerospace <\/span>will be among the sectors that we will further explore in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\nSofia\u2019s Success Stories<\/b><\/h4>\n
Sofia on the Global Map: Delegations, Events and Partnerships<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/a>What Are We Working Toward?<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/span><\/p>\n2020 Will Be Pretty Challenging!<\/b><\/h4>\n