Svilena Mihaylova
Analysis and Assessment of the Policy Towards Foreign Direct Investment in Bulgaria in the Period 1990-2018
Summary:
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been regarded as an important driver of economic development in Bulgaria since the very start of market transition, which determined the establishment of a liberal foreign investment regime. However, the impressively large FDI stock, which was accumulated during the period of growth before the global crisis, has quite unfavorable sectoral and regional structure. In combination with the substantial drop of FDI after the crisis and its very low levels in the following years, this suggests that there are certain weaknesses of the policy towards FDI. Given the importance of the topic, the paper tries to analyze and assess FDI policy in Bulgaria. For this purpose, first we discuss some key features of inward FDI, then we outline the changes in the legislation in this field and in the end, some critical arguments and recommendations are given.