Bulgaria's Snapshot Profile

• Full name: Republic of Bulgaria

• Population: 7.3m (* '08)

• Administrative capital: Sofia (1.2m inhabitants)

• Timezone: GMT + 2 hours, BST + 3 hours

• Area: 110,550 sq km (land)

• Sunshine: c. 300 days 

• Coastline: 354km

• Main religions: 85% Orthodox Christian, 13% Muslim, 2% Other

• Languages: Bulgarian (Slavic language akin to Russian/ Serbo-Croat), alphabet- Cyrillic

• Admin divisions: 9 provinces: Burgas, Grad Sofia, Khaskovo, Lovech, Montana, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sofia, Varna 

• Internet domain: .bg

• International dialling code: +359 

• GDP: $39.61bn (*'08) 

• Economic growth: +6.2% (*’08)

• Labour force: 3.4m ('08)

• Unemployment: 7.7% *

• Inflation: 7.6%*

• FDI: 16.43% (** ’08)

• Average wage: c.€250 month (Sofia Echo 16.5.06/NSI) 

• Monetary unit: Lev (BGN) pegged to euro

• Main export: Chemicals and plastics, food and drink, tobacco, machine-building equipment, a significant net exporter of electricity 

• Member of EU: Since 1st January ‘07

For a fuller overview of Bulgaria’s country profile and macro-economic indicators, click on Bulgaria's STEP country profile to give you more in-depth information of the Social, Technological, Economic and Political profile for the country.

To give you more background as to why you might consider investing in Bulgaria, go to the Why Invest section, or maybe look at the individual towns and cities profiled in each country's Towns section.

To see what property is available in Bulgaria, click here on Bulgarian property

Sources: *CIA World Factbook, **World Bank, National Statistics office, IMF, IFS, WDI (2004), Eurostat ’07, Bulgariatravel.org, BBC.co.uk, wikipedia.org, National Statistics Institute, Industry Watch