I do not see how the price land will fall. Historically the price of arable land has been going up for the last 200 years, Kamen Kolchev, chairman of the board of directors of Elana Property Management, said.

Bulgaria started to realize how important agriculture is. This may partially help the economy adding a few per cent to the GDP, against the backdrop of the fallout in the construction and tourism sectors.

The consolidation of the land by high-quality farmers and equipment is the way for the development of the agriculture sector, Kolchev said at a conference on investment in arable land.

The fragmentation of the land at present is what keeps the foreign investors away, according to Vesselin Petrov, executive director of Elana Property Management.

There are 40 mln decares of privately-owned arable land in Bulgaria fragmented in 7.3 mln properties, which means that that the average size of the properties stands at around 5 decares.

The conference was also attended by the Minister of agriculture and food Valeri Tsvetanov who said that 80% of the land in Bulgaria is environmentally clean. The price of arable land in Bulgaria has risen by 19% over the past year, according to Tsvetanov.

The price of arable land marked a 30-percent year-on-year increase as at the end of October 2008, Vesselin Petrov said earlier in an interview for Profit.tv. The figure exceeded the forecasts for a 20-percent increase made in the beginning of the year.

The price of land is expected to rise by an average of over 20% annually in the next few years, Petrov said.

Taking into consideration the fact that the land in Bulgaria is extremely undervalued in comparison to the neighboring European countries, the price of the land is not expected to fall, Petrov forecast.

Elana Agricultural Land Opportunity Fund's portfolio included over 290,000 decares of land as at the end of September 2008, up by 40,000 decares, compared to December 2007.