Tsvetan Simeonov: The future government have to start working to facilitate the import of employees. We’d like to remind that some promises were recently given about that

This event was a continuation of the round-table meeting, held jointly with the India-Bulgaria Business Chamber, about the unused opportunities for importing labour.

The meeting was officially opened by Tsvetan Simeonov, President of the BCCI, who shared that the increase in salaries due to the lack of sufficient workforce is not a constructive way to develop the Bulgarian economy, since this does not provide any clear perspectives. Qualified employees and innovations are necessary to increase productivity and catch up successfully with our European partners, he added.

The BCCI President emphasised that Bulgaria  needs enough skilled and unskilled workforce in order that the country can make up for its lagging behind within the European Union. In terms of growth rates, we are doing so-so fine, but in terms of volumes and in terms of prospects, we have to go ahead a lot, Simeonov said.

He declared that BCCI continues to work on facilitating the access of Bulgarian companies to labour force coming from abroad, too, and pointed out that this is part of the long-term task of the organisation to solve this issue. Simeonov noted that the problem faces not only Bulgarian companies, but also those in Europe and the USA.

The BCCI President reminded about the round-table meeting which was held for  the import of personnel from India and where a decision was made that, within short time limits, a Working group has to be convened at the Ministry of Economy and Industry, and pointed out that this has not happened. Simeonov stated that the Chamber's efforts would go on with the new government. Whatever government is formed, the following task has to be fulfilled: to facilitate the import of labour and make it easier to implement the plans of the business to expand, increase production and take more orders, the BCCI President said.

Slavi Slavov, Project Manager at Human Power BG, presented the activities of the company, which has been working in the field of labour import since 2021. He acquainted the participants in the meeting with the whole process - from the selection of the right people, through the preparation of the documents and procedures to the arrival of workers in this country. What he determined as extremely important was to draw up a strategy for each single company, as well as the specific language courses which Human Power has been offering to workers and employees since April this year, in order to make them familiar with basic terms in Bulgarian in the different sectors of the economy. More details about the language training sessions were shared by Iliyan Stankov, The Prime Academy.

Sandesh Ariel, an owner of a Nepalese recruitment agency and partner of Human Power BG, presented the profile of workers and employees from Nepal  - peaceful and calm, loyal, obedient and very industrious. He shared that they adapt quickly to the new environment and just as quickly get acquainted with the work and good at doing it.

The meeting continued with a discussion, in which representatives of the business from different sectors took part: logistics, transport, building, the chemical industry, production, etc. The questions were put about opening bank accounts for foreigners, issuing public transport cards, the remuneration amounts, medical insurance, etc.

In the same way as up to now, BCCI will continue to follow the topic and give information about any forthcoming initiatives related to easing the conditions for importing workforce.