An interactive investment map of Bulgaria was launched at an official event hosted by the Ministry of Innovation and Growth (MIG) here on October 16.
The national platform Home - Interactive investment map by IBA, which is the first of its kind, has been developed in a project implemented by the InvestBulgaria Agency (IBA) with the assistance of the MIG and in cooperation with the Employment Agency, the National Statistical Institute and the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Agency, which provide an official information feed to the tool.
The map is intended to provide Bulgarian and foreign investors with useful, centralized, up-to-date and readily accessible information that will be of critical importance in investment decision making.
"The new platform stemmed from a view shared by the MIG and IBA that there is a need of a one-stop-shop source to be used by investors. It covers the industrial zones and the separate land parcels, but what is crucial is the link with the research community and what it can do for business," said IBA Executive Director Mila Nenova, who presented the interactive investment map.
She specified that the map and the information it contains is the product of IBA's interaction with trade attaches at foreign countries' embassies in Bulgaria, with bilateral chambers of commerce, investors, the industrial zones in Bulgaria and other stakeholders.
The platform presented on October 16 contains three core information groups: about industrial zones and industrial parks, the research and technological infrastructure, and investment properties. It comes complete with an interactive map showing all sites of the three groups uploaded on the platform at a given point in time. It is now up to the industrial zones, the research and technological organizations and industrial property owners, as stakeholders, to amplify and update the tool, Nenova said.
Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Innovation and Growth Minister Tomislav Donchev explained that "the platform is not an accidental insight but has evolved from consistent efforts made for years". He recalled that industrial zones are a key instrument for the improvement and acceleration of the investment process in Bulgaria because deploying a new industrial capacity in such site takes months.
"Time is of the essence for investors, which is why the administration should aspire to move at the same speed as the corporate sector," Donchev pointed out.
He was adamant that the platform will not compete with real estate brokers, consultants and lawyers because its only focus is on industrial property.
Prof. Sylvia Ilieva, Director of the GATE (Big Data for Smart Society) Institute with the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, described the IBA-developed platform as "an indication of a new way of thinking".
Government institutions, academe, the business community, bilateral chambers of commerce and the industrial zones in this country were also represented at the presentation of the platform and the interactive investment map of Bulgaria.