Rosen Plevneliev, general manager of Lindner Immobilien Management:Factories have to come to the front

Factories should come into fashion, not shopping malls or office buildings. If this won’t happen then we really do have a serious problem. And new investors in these factories will ask questions about the quantity of gas, water and electricity plus employees. We need a completely new approach here.
It became clear that serious investments will come from the real estate property sector, where there was much to be done and, globally, the money was there. But when we saw 15 malls coming in Sofia, 5 in Stara Zagora etc., the decision to stop giving the benefits of first class investments to such projects was very good.
From now on the rest of the steps have to be made too – once the state has defined its priorities, it has to fight with all its might to make these things come true. I assume the country has halted somewhere at that point. Macedonia for example is now using quite an aggressive approach and advertising strategy focusing on the fact that if a foreign factory moves in, it will significantly cut its costs.
Bulgaria is still having serious chances to do the same at least because of western companies which now have to dramatically decrease their operating costs. We can use this but we first have to make some marketing research and choose a proper position, change radically our image in the European Union community on the whole. On a state level, we must see that this is truly a priority - the fight for factories and for foreign investment. 
We have that law for stimulating investments but it has three very big problems. Municipalities are not able to do the alienation procedures for infrastructure development. The entire industry is long since feeling pressed by companies offering public services like electrical and water supply and sewerage. Thirdly, the Ministry of Economy and the BulgariaInvest agency are willing to help but they lack the mechanisms and instruments to do so. For example, a third of over 100 certified investors are waiting for certain permits issued by the Ministry of Environment and Water of Bulgaria - complex environmental licenses or environmental assessments for example.

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