State of competitiveness of the wine sector and guidance and opportunities for improvement

Abstract

From decades Bulgarian winy industry is a market and export orientated branch of economy. The geographical situation of the country benefits good climate conditions for vine growing. In result there have been established several wine regions in the country. The vine growing has rich sort structure. All these factors are good potential of production of high competitive wines in Balkan region. The purpose of this paper is to be comparatively analyzed the competitive ability of wine sector and to be pointed ways for its improvement. We use as basic approach the Porter’s model of evaluation of competitive ability of economic sectors – evaluation of factor conditions, supported and chain connected branches, the conditions of demand and strategies of enterprises. The competitive advantages are evaluated with the following criteria - relative index of export advantages, relative index of imported advantages, and relative index of trade advantages. Bulgaria is losing market share and ability to compete on global wine market. Traditional producers of wine from Europe such as Bulgaria are aggressively competing by new comers like Chilli, Australia, South Africa and Argentina. Basic approach for enhancement of competitiveness of our wine sector in future is to diversify production and to accelerate the integration of branches – vine growing and wine producing.