Overview: Growth in the lackluster Bulgarian economy fell to the 2% annual level in the 1980s. By 1990 Sofia's foreign debt had skyrocketed to over $10 billion--giving a debt service ratio of more than 40% of hard currency earnings and leading the regime to declare a moratorium on its hard currency payments. The post-Zhivkov regime faces major problems of renovating an aging industrial plant; coping with worsening energy, food, and consumer goods shortages; keeping abreast of rapidly unfolding technological developments; investing in additional energy capacity (the portion of electric power from nuclear energy reached over one-third in 1990); and motivating workers, in part by giving them a share in the earnings of their enterprises. A major decree of January 1989 summarized and extended the government's economic restructuring efforts, which include a partial decentralization of controls over production decisions and foreign trade. In October 1990 the Lukanov government proposed an economic reform program based on a US Chamber of Commerce study. It was never instituted because of a political stalemate between the BSP and the UDF. The new Popov government launched a similar reform program in January 1991, but full implementation has been slowed by continuing political disputes.

GNP: $47.3 billion, per capita $5,300; real growth rate - 6.0% (1990)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 100% (1990 est.)

Unemployment rate: 2% (1990 est.)

Budget: revenues $26 billion; expenditures $28 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA billion (1988)

Exports: $16.0 billion (f.o.b., 1989); commodities--machinery and equipment 60.5%; agricultural products 14.7%; manufactured consumer goods 10.6%; fuels, minerals, raw materials, and metals 8.5%; other 5.7%; partners--Communist countries 82.5% (USSR 61%, GDR 5.5%, Czechoslovakia 4.9%); developed countries 6.8% (FRG 1.2%, Greece 1.0%); less developed countries 10.7% (Libya 3.5%, Iraq 2.9%)

Imports: $15.0 billion (f.o.b., 1989); commodities--fuels, minerals, and raw materials 45.2%; machinery and equipment 39.8%; manufactured consumer goods 4.6%; agricultural products 3.8%; other 6.6%; partners--Communist countries 80.5% (USSR 57.5%, GDR 5.7%), developed countries 15.1% (FRG 4.8%, Austria 1.6%); less developed countries 4.4% (Libya 1.0%, Brazil 0.9%)

External debt: $10 billion (1990)

Industrial production: growth rate - 10.7% (1990); accounts for about 50% of GDP

Electricity: 11,500,000 kW capacity; 45,000 million kWh produced, 5,040 kWh per capita (1990)

Industries: machine and metal building,food processing, chemicals, textiles, building materials, ferrous and nonferrous metals

Agriculture: accounts for 15% of GNP; climate and soil conditions support livestock raising and the growing of various grain crops, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits and tobacco; more than one-third of the arable land devoted to grain; world's fourth-largest tobacco exporter; surplus food producer

Economic aid: donor--$1.6 billion in bilateral aid to non-Communist less developed countries (1956-89)

Currency: lev (plural--leva); 1 lev (Lv) = 100 stotinki

Exchange rates: leva (Lv) per US$1--16.13 (March 1991), 0.7446 (November 1990), 0.84 (1989), 0.82 (1988), 0.90 (1987), 0.95 (1986), 1.03 (1985); note--floating exchange rate since February 1990

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Bulgaria on this page is re-published from the 1991 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Bulgaria Economy 1991 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Bulgaria Economy 1991 should be addressed to the CIA.