Bulgaria ranks 38th in competitiveness among 57 leading world and regional economies in the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2009, Rouslan Stefanov from the Center for the Study of Democracy told a news conference. International investors closely follow the countries' rankings in the Yearbook, he said.

Bulgaria has climbed up a notch from 2008 and is ahead of countries like Spain, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Romania, Croatia and Ukraine.

Of all groups of factors, Bulgaria's ranking is highest in Economic Efficiency at 26th place in 2009, up from 38th last year. As to Government Efficiency, this country is 28th in 2009, up one place from 2008. In terms of Infrastructure Efficiency, Bulgaria has slid two notches from 2008 to 43rd place. Business Efficiency was evaluated lowest of all aspects, with Bulgaria in 47th place, moving up from 54th position two years ago.

Stefanov called Bulgaria's improved ranking, from 41st position in 2006 to 38th in 2009, "an undoubted positive signal" to international investors about the economy's potential compared

with other countries of the region. The global crisis and inherited shortcomings are major setbacks to economic development, especially as regards access to capital, coping with intercompany debt, improving the country's image, respect for the rule of law, fair competition, curbing the grey economy and corruption, ensuring skilled labor and managerial experience, developing innovations, technology and science, he added.

The ranking shows that the strengths of the Bulgarian economy are foreign investments as a percentage of GDP, tourism revenues as a percentage of GDP, real growth of per capita GDP, the cost of living index, low corporate income tax, short-term interest, government debt, the remuneration of managers, investment in telecommunications as a percentage of GDP, the price of Internet access, the number of mobile phone users, the Dependency Index (which shows the proportion of people under 15 and over 64 as a proportion of the workforce aged between 15 and 64), and per capita medical staff.

The weaknesses of the Bulgarian economy are the current account deficit, the volume of exports, inflation, per capita GDP, personal property protection and security, the country's credit rating, consumption tax, labor productivity, the change in the price of labor per unit of output, the discrepancy between business requirements for managerial staff and education in the respective disciplines, energy intensity, business expenditures on research and development and total expenditures on R&D as a percentage of GDP, the number of computers per 1,000 population, bribery and corruption, the transparency of governance, and audit and accounting practices.

Source: BTA