Bulgaria can be home to Korean SMEs

This is the ninth in a series of letters by experts to President-elect Park Geun-hye. ― ED.

By Petar Andonov

Petar Andonov

Dear Madam President-elect,

I avail myself of this opportunity to express the wish of the people and the leadership of Republic of Bulgaria for further strengthening of the friendly relations, the mutual understanding and the fruitful cooperation between our two countries.

For us, Korea is a strategic partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Sharing important fundamental values of democracy, human rights and the market economy is the backbone of our relationship.

I sincerely hope that the common efforts of the Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev and President-elect Park Geun-hye will lead to enhancing our bilateral relations and cooperation in the areas of the economy, investments, science and technology, culture and education to a new stage as well as to addressing global challenges and making a significant contribution to strengthening the strategic partnership and implementing fully the free trade agreement between the EU and Republic of Korea.

Korea’s active diplomacy in international forums makes it an influential key player in developing new paradigms on global issues from non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to green growth and development.

That is the reason why we would like to further expand our political partnership with Seoul in a global context. In this regard, Bulgaria will continue to urge North Korea, as we did before and right after the rocket launch in December 2012, to comply fully and unconditionally with its obligations under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, in particular by abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear and missile programs.

I would like to use this opportunity to invite the President-elect Park to visit Bulgaria at an early opportunity. We would welcome her in order to further develop our mutual priorities and the next stage in our bilateral relations. If realized, such a visit would be the first one to be made by a Korean President since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries 23 years ago.

I have followed closely President-elect Park’s election campaign and policy platforms with a significant interest. I was impressed by her strong determination to keep her election promises, especially for putting in place measures to ensure the growth of Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

As an economist, I believe the economic growth should be achieved mainly by promoting SMEs through financial and regulatory support, and helping them expand their cross-border cooperation.

I believe Bulgaria can be a good partner as well as an attractive destination for Korean SMEs to seek growth opportunities overseas, especially in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and computer software development. Bulgaria is successfully positioning itself as a regional hub for ICT. For example, a recent New York Times article has praised us as a country with “one of the fastest developing ICT industries in Europe where low labor cost and taxes, and a pool of talented ICT professionals have made Sofia a favored outsourcing destination for many foreign IT companies”.

As a regional transportation and logistical center, Bulgaria could assist the efforts of Korean companies for their exports to Europe benefiting from the well-developed network of ports, airports, highways and logistical centers. Bulgaria is a member-state of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) and Korea is a sectoral dialogue partner country in the same entity.

This is an important prerequisite for active cooperation between our two countries on specific ICT-related projects in the geographic area of BSEC encompassing the territories of the Black Sea littoral states, the Balkans and the Caucasus with a population of 350 million people and a foreign trade capacity of over $300 billion annually.

Petar Andonov is Bulgarian ambassador to Korea