Foreign markets – a source of optimism for Europe

For the 19th consecutive year Eurochambres (the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry) has conducted the “Eurochambres economic survey 2012” among 70 000 European companies. In Bulgaria, only the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry polls the opinions of businesses. Our country participates in the initiative for the 13th time. In October this year, BCCI surveyed the opinions of 586 companies - members of the Chamber, of which 371 (63%) work in industry and 215 (37%) in services.
At a press conference, the President of BCCI Tsvetan Simeonov presented the survey emphasizing Bulgaria’s results. “Perspectives in Bulgaria for 2012 are mostly positive and we are ranked among the first countries by optimism according to the various indicators”, Mr. Simeonov stated.

Business climate
Mostly optimistic expectations of Bulgarian companies about the business climate in 2012 put us in first place among the other European countries. With regard to business expectations, our country is followed by Sweden, Turkey and Romania, while Greece, Denmark and Austria are at the other extreme with mainly pessimistic opinions.
German business as a major partner of Bulgarian companies, also has mainly positive view on 2012, while in Italy and France negative opinions prevail.

Export sales
Over half of Bulgarian businesses (56.9%) expect an increase in their sales abroad. Mainly optimistic expectations of revenues from sales abroad, rank our country first in this respect.
It is worth mentioning that Greece, which until now was rather pessimistic, is now one of first countries expecting an increase of revenues from sales abroad. Turkey, Estonia and Poland also expect an increase of export in 2012.
Only in Hungary and the Czech Republic pessimistic opinions prevail in 2012, leaving them in the last places as compared to the other European counties.
Positive export prognoses for 2012 differ from the predicted scenario of cautiousness and insecurity. It is impressive that optimism with regard to export comes to a large extent from the countries in the Euro zone, which clearly identified foreign markets as a key source of sales in the next 12 months. 

Employment
Employment expectations in our country for 2012 remain close to those in 2011. Positive perspectives on growth of employment in 2012 in Turkey, Belgium and Estonia outstrip the level of optimism of Bulgarian companies.
Among companied from Greece, Spain and Cyprus negative expectations prevail and they rank among the TOP 3 countries which have negative expectations for employment in 2012.

Investments
As a whole Bulgarian companies retain a positive perspective on investments for next year. Here, like with employment, optimism is not high, but still most companies (47.3%) intend to preserve their level of investments in the country.
The three countries which are mostly optimistic about an increase of investments are Turkey, Poland and Bulgaria. Expectations of Romanian companies for 2012 have significantly improved as compared to their expectations for 2011.
Over half of the countries remain mainly pessimistic, the highest levels of pessimism about investment levels are noted in Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Summarizing the results from the survey, Tsvetan Simeonov underlined the importance of our companies using their export potential as an engine for growth. Mr. Simeonov recommends that Bulgarian firms focus on fast developing new markets such as China, India, Russia and regions such as Southeast Asia and Latin America. Last but not least, Mr. Simeonov cited traditional in the near past markets of the Arab countries.

In the past several months, BCCI held meetings with business representatives from Brazil, Argentina and Libya.

“Еurochambres Economic Survey 2012” is available online at www.eurochambres.eu/content/default.asp?PageID=146