A slight improvement of the business climate in our country in comparison to the previous year, which suggests a recovery, albeit slow, reports the survey of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI).
About one-third of the companies (36%) expect an improvement of their business activity in 2015, 17% predict decrease, and almost half of them (47%) reckon that their economic development in 2015 will remain at the same level compared to 2014. The business climate indicator for 2015 is improving in comparison to the results for 2014, but there are still risks because of the volatile environment and frail economic recovery.
Traditionally, Bulgarian companies expect better sales abroad in comparison to the domestic market revenues. Almost half of the surveyed business leaders think they can achieve higher levels of exports next year. Exports in 2015 are expected to increase, but slowly because of the geopolitical pressure and the insecure global environment.
The business doesn’t expect significant growth of domestic demand and slightly over half of the companies predict that their revenues in 2015 will be the same as in 2014.
For a second consecutive year a stabilization of employment is noted: 64% of the surveyed employers think that they will keep the same number of employees. The share of companies expecting to reduce personnel is decreasing (from 11% in 2014 to 9% in 2015). The encouraging signs for improvement of employment however are placed at risk by the possibility to put pressure on the labour market.
Regarding investments, there is certain improvement, even though a large number of companies (53%) still prefer to keep them at the same level in 2015. 36% of companies intend to increase investments next year. 11% of companies consider lowering investments, in comparison to last year’s survey when their number was 16%.