Competitiveness analysis of vegetable-growing production in Bulgaria

Abstract

In the article has been made an analysis of the competitiveness of Bulgarian vegetable growing, based on methodology elaborated by the Institute of Agricultural Economics (LEI), Netherlands. Statistical data have been used for the period 2000-2011. The model includes three indicators groups – of development ambience, of production factors and of resultant factors, which finally define the production competitiveness of a product group. Each group covers several indicators. The main idea is to determine and analyze indicators, which would allow the identification of the trends changes and the development model. Secondly, indicators quantification enables to compare their dimension with fixed benchmarks, including making comparisons between countries and country groups. Therefore, the competitiveness analysis through this methodology includes both changes of defining factors’ manifestation (these ones for the development ambient and for the production) and the quantification of the attained level in relation to other countries or country groups. The final assessment of the vegetal growing competitiveness will be based on four main indicators: 1. Increase/decrease of sector share on the world market; 2. Increase of labour productivity by different stages of the food chain; 3. Increase of the Balassa competitiveness index value; 4. Increase of added value by different stages of the food chain. In result of the research, a conclusion could be made that the strong sides of Bulgarian vegetable growing competitiveness – provision of land, favourable climate and existing traditions – in the first 10 years of 21 century are in process of consistent neutralization and in the last years they were even overreached by the deficits related to the development environment -   demographic processes, education quality and costs for scientific and development activities; weakness of entrepreneurship and introduction of innovations; market infrastructure and institutions in the sector. In result of a high for the country level, the share of Bulgaria in the world trade with vegetables decreases; the importance of vegetables in the total agricultural country exportation also decreases and at the end of the period we have become a net importer of vegetables. Finally, in the open ambience of the Common European market, Bulgarian plant-growing demonstrates decreasing competitiveness.