i s s u e 1 5 2s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

EU Affairs:

Bulgaria to Receive to Receive $16 Billion $16 Billion by 2020by 2020

AmCham Events:

Discussion on Mechanisms for Mechanisms for Better Regulator y Better Regulator y Impact Assessment Impact Assessment ElectionsElections

EU Affairs:EU Affairs:

B l iB l i

AmCham Events:AmCham Events:

Di iDi i

Cloudy with a Chance of SuccessCloudy with a Chance of SuccessAmCham Inter view:AmCham Inter view:

Ken Hyatt , U.S. Ken Hyatt , U.S. Deput y Under Deput y Under Secretar y for Secretar y for International International TradeTrade

1p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

e d i t o r i a l

On the cover of this issue you will see about the only cloud we could get excited about recently. After so much bad weather, torrential rains, dark skies and gloomy news from north and east, the progress in cloud technologies is like a ray of sunshine. A sunny cloud – what an oxymoron, isn’t it? This said, you may read our detailed account on the developments in this high-technology business on Page 4, including expert opinions on the likely trends.

It seems quite possible that Bulgaria can become a regional IT hub, which is an idea enjoying the full backing of the American Chamber of Commerce. I certainly hope for the speedy development of the Sofia Tech Park project, and we will inform you about the latest news in this regard in one of our next issues.

Unlike the virtual clouds of the technological progress, the aerial type created some considerable problems. Floods of the last two months have been of epic proportions, with intensity not seen in at least 30 years. Many members of the Chamber assisted in the devastated areas. We thank them for their gener-osity and spirit in helping those in need.

Our author Boyko Vassilev offers you a more philosophical and historical take on the Ukrainian crisis on Page 18. In the forthcoming issues expect a detailed expose on the U.S. actions against the jihadists of the so-called Islamic State.

Clouds and rain cannot last forever, and that is why we have provided you with a piece of more optimistic news in the end. Marina Tsvetkova reviews the options for the distribution of some $16 billion (10 billion Euro) that Bulgaria is set to receive from various EU pro-grams. This is quite something not to be gloomy about, isn’t it?

Sincerely,

Milen MarchevEditor-in-Chief

Dear Reader,

c o n t e n t s

2

Publisher American Chamber of Commerce in BulgariaBusiness Park Sofia, Mladost 4 AreaBuilding 2, Floor 6, Sofia 1766, BulgariaTel.: +359 (2) 9742 743Fax: +359 (2) 9742 741e-mail: amcham@amcham.bgwww.amcham.bg

Editor-in-ChiefMilen Marchev

Deputy Editor-in-ChiefChristopher Karadjov

Senior Editor:Irina Bacheva

ISSN 1312-935X

Writers:Boyko Vassilev, Marina Tzvetkova, Mina Georgieva, Panayot Angarev, Yuliana Boncheva

AdvertisingAmCham Bulgaria: Nadejda Vakareeva, nadia@amcham.bg

AmCham Bulgaria Magazine:Milen Marchev, milen@milenmarchev.com

The AmCham Bulgaria Magazine reaches a broad audi-ence of AmCham members, leading US, Bulgarian and international companies, US and Bulgarian decision-mak-ers, all AmChams around the world.Subscription is free of charge. If you would like to sub-scribe to AmCham Bulgaria publications, please contact the AmCham Bulgaria office.

i s s u e 1 5 2s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

AmCham Bulgaria Magazine is a primary forum for political and economic analyses, news, viewpoints as well as for the presentation of new business opportunities. The articles in the AmCham Bulgaria Magazine express the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria.

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

3p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

a m c h a m b u l g a r i a

Contentsc o v e r s t o r y

Up in the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Cloud Solutions Allow Companies to Go More into Service Providing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Cloud is a Once-in-a-Generation Technology Advancement to Reimagine Business . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cloud is Powerful Vehicle for Aligning Business Strategy with IT and Driving Business Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Small Companies are the Primary Users of Public Cloud Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

e u a f f a i r s

Good News: Brussels Gives Bulgaria $16 Billion by 2020 . . . . . .12

a n a l y s i s

Russia, West, Ukraine:

Few Good Moves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

By Boyko Vassilev

a m c h a m e v e n t s

Politicians, Diplomats and Experts Discuss New Mechanisms for Better Regulatory Impact Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Diversity for Bulgaria and Europe Means Multiple Types of Energy, Multiple Suppliers and Multiple Supply Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

By Irina Bacheva

m e m b e r n e w s

Kempinski Bansko Is Bulgaria’s Leading Spa Resort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Over 10 000 children Take Part in

3M Bulgaria EOOD . AA KRES EOOD . Abbott Products EOOD . AbbVie EOOD . Actavis Bulgaria . Adecco Bulgaria ltd. . Advance International Transport EOOD . AES Corporation . AFA OOD . AGORA-IN Ltd. . AHNtech Branch Bulgaria . AIG Europe Limited (Bulgaria Branch) . AIMS Human Capital . Air Berlin PLC & Co. Luftverkehrs KG . Albena AD . Alfred C. Toepfer International Bulgaria EOOD . ALICO Bulgaria ZhZD EAD, a MetLife Inc. Company . All Channels Communication . Alliance One Tobacco Bulgaria . Allied Pickfords Bulgaria . Alpha Bank Bulgaria . America for Bulgaria Foundation . American College of Sofia . American English Academy . American Research Center in Sofia . American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) . Amgen Bulgaria EOOD . Amway Romania Marketing Srl . Anglo-American School of Sofia . AON Bulgaria . APOLO Ltd. . Arexim Engineering . Ashtrom International Ltd. . Association Srednogorie Copper Industrial Cluster . Astra Zeneca Bulgaria EOOD . AT Engineering 2000 Ltd. . Atlantic Club Bulgaria . Atos IT Solutions and Services EOOD . Attica Media Bulgaria Ltd. . August Research . Aurubis Bulgaria AD . Auto Bavaria Ltd. . AVON Cosmetics Bulgaria . AW-Tronics . Axway Bulgaria EOOD . Baker Tilly Bulgaria . Balkan Star Automotive EOOD . Ballistic Cell Ltd. . Baxter Bulgaria EOOD . BC Serdon . Berlitz Schools of Languages . BG Radio . BICA International Ltd. . BMG Ltd. . BMW Vertiebs GmbH - Branch Bulgaria . BNP Paribas S.A. - Sofia Branch . BOYANOV & Co. . Braykov's Legal Office . British American Tobacco Bulgaria . Brown Forman Beverages Worldwide Sofia Branch LLC . bTV Media Group . Bulgarian American Enterprise Fund . Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation (BCAF) . Bulgarian Executive Search Association . Bulgarian Property Developments EOOD . BulPros Consulting JSC . Bulstrad Life Vienna Insurance Group . Business Intellect Ltd. . Business Park Sofia EOOD . Carat Bulgaria . Castello Precast OOD . Center for the Study of Democracy . Cheque Dejeuner Bulgaria Ltd. . Chevron Bulgaria Exploration and Production EOOD . Cisco Systems Bulgaria . Citibank Europe Plc, Bulgaria Branch . Club 50 Plus . CMS Cameron McKenna LLP - Bulgaria Branch . Coca-Cola Enterprises Services Bulgaria EOOD . Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria AD . Coface Bulgaria Credit Management Services EOOD . COLLIERS International Bulgaria . Congress Engineering Ltd. . Construction Management Group . Contitrans M Ltd. . ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3 AD . Credit Agricole Bulgaria EAD . Curtis / Balkan Ltd. . Dalkia Bulgaria EAD . Danailov, Mihaleva, Nedelchev & Co. . Delchev & Partners Law Firm . Deloitte Bulgaria EOOD . denkstatt Bulgaria OOD . Deutsche Bank AG . Devin AD . DHL Express Bulgaria Ltd. . Diamed Ltd. . Dimitrov, Petrov & Co. . Djingov, Gouginski, Kyutchukov, & Velichkov . Dobrev & Lyutskanov Law Firm . Dr. I.S. Greenberg Medical Center . Drujba Glassworks SA . Dundee Precious Metals Inc. . DuPont Pioneer . EcoPack Bulgaria AD . Edenred Bulgaria . Ekoterm Proekt EAD . Ekotoi - Service Ltd. . Ekzotika EOOD . Electron Progress EAD . Elevat Ltd. Legal House . Eli Lilly and Company . Eltrak Bulgaria Ltd. . EMC Computer Systems Austria GmbH . Emerson Process Management . EnergoService AD . Engineeringservice Sofia Ltd. . Enterprise Communications Group OOD . EOS Matrix Ltd. . Ernst & Young Bulgaria EOOD . ESRI Bulgaria Ltd. . Etap Adress . Eurobank Bulgaria . Eurohold Bulgaria . European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) . European Trade Center EOOD . Expat Capital . Experian Bulgaria EAD . FairPlay International . Fama Consulting OOD . Flying Cargo Bulgaria Ltd. - Licensee of FedEx . Force Delta Ltd. . Forton International AD . Foundation Glob@l Libraries - Bulgaria . Fox International Channels Bulgaria EOOD . GAEA - Green Alternative Energy Assets EAD . Galardo EOOD . Gasstroymontaj Jsc . General Electric International . Georgiev, Todorov & Co. . Geostroy AD . Geotechmin OOD . Geotrading AD . Gi Group . GIFTA . GlaxoSmithKline . Grand Hotel Sofia . GTC Bulgaria . Helios . Power Hewlett-Packard Bulgaria Ltd. . HILD Asset Bulgaria Jsc. . Hilton Sofia . Honeywell EOOD . IBM Bulgaria . ICAP Bulgaria JSC . Ideal Standard - Vidima AD . Incotex Group Ltd. . Industrial Holding Bulgaria . InterConsult Bulgaria Ltd. . Interdean Relocation Services . Interlang Ltd. . Intertek - Moody . Intracom Bulgaria EAD . Investbank JSC . Investor BG AD . IP Consulting Ltd. . ITT Exelis . Japan Tobacco International Bulgaria . Jobs.bg EOOD . JobTiger Ltd. . Johnson & Johnson Bulgaria EOOD . Johnson Controls Electronics Bulgaria . Junior Achievement Bulgaria . Kaliakra AD . Kamenitza AD . Katilin Popov Enforcement Officers . Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena Bansko . Kempinski Hotel Zografski Sofia . KPMG Bulgaria OOD . LANDMARK Property Management AD . Lexim Sofia Ltd . Lindner Immobilien Management EOOD . Lirex BG Ltd. . M3 Communications Group, Inc. A Hill & Knowlton Associate . Maria Vranovska, MD, MBA . Mars Incorporated Bulgaria EOOD . Marsh EOOD . Maxi I AD . MB Communications . MBL| Part of the CBRE Affiliate Network . Megatron EAD . Mellon Bulgaria EAD . Merck Sharp & Dohme Bulgaria . Microsoft Bulgaria . Miltech Ltd. . Minstroy Holding Jsc . Mobiltel EAD . Monbat Plc. . Mondelez Bulgaria AD . Moten Sport . Moto-Pfohe Ltd. . Movex Relocations . Mr. Alex Nestor . Mr. David Hampson . Mr. Jean Talmon . Ms. Anelia Tatarova . Ms. Kalinka Kovatcheva . Ms. Margarita Radeva, CPA . Municipal Bank Plc . Musala Soft AD . NDB Ltd. . Nemetschek Bulgaria . NEXTDOOR Ltd. . Nicholas Galabov . Novacon Bulgaria Ltd. . Novotel Sofia MHQ . Nu Boyana Film Studios . Office for Mining Industry and Metallurgy Ltd. . On Bulgaria Ltd. . Oracle East Central Europe Limited - Branch Bulgaria . Orak Group Europe Ltd. . Orbit Ltd. . Orkikem Ltd. . Panchim Ltd. . PANDA - IP Ltd. . Pedersen & Partners . Penev LLP . Penkov, Markov & Partners . Pfizer Luxembourg SARL Branch Bulgaria . Philip Morris Bulgaria EOOD . Philips Bulgaria Ltd. . PMB EOOD . PPD Bulgaria EOOD . Premier Luxury Mountain Resort . Premier Tours Ltd. . Prestige 96 AD . Progress CAD R&D Centre Ltd. . Provident Financial Bulgaria Ltd. . PSG Payroll Services Ltd. . PwC Bulgaria . Quadrant Beverages JSC . Radisson Blu Grand Hotel . Red Devil Catering Plc . Regus Bulgaria Ltd. . Renault Nissan Bulgaria SRL . Right Rental Ltd. . RSM BX Ltd. . S&T Bulgaria . Sanofi - Aventis Bulgaria EOOD . Sb Accounting and Consulting . Schenker EOOD . Schneider Electric Bulgaria . SECTRON . Sensata Technologies . Shell Bulgaria EAD . Sherita M Ltd. . Siemens EOOD . SIENIT Holding . Sitel Bulgaria EOOD . Sodexo Pass Bulgaria EOOD . Sofia Hotel Balkan . Sofita . Sogelife Bulgaria IJSC . Sopharma AD . Sopharma Trading JSC . St. Sofia Golf Club & SPA . Stanton Chase International Bulgaria . Steelcase International . Stefan Dimitrov, Norman Realestate Co. Ltd. . Sunfoods Bulgaria EOOD - Development Licensee of McDonald’s in Bulgaria . Sutherland Global Services Bulgaria EOOD . Tavex EOOD . TBI Bank EAD . TechnoLogica EAD . Telelink EAD . TELUS International Europe . The Coca-Cola Company Bulgaria . Tishman Management Company EOOD . Titan Zlatna Panega Cement . TMF Services EOOD . Tocheva & Mandazhieva Law Office . Totema Engineering JSC . UniCredit Bulbank . UniCredit Leasing EAD . Unimasters Logistics Plc . Unique Estates . Unisys Bulgaria Branch . United Bulgarian Bank . VAPTECH Ltd. . Videolux Holding / Technopolis . VISA Europe . VIVACOM . VMware Bulgaria EOOD

VSK K t IZ Di ik EOOD VUZF U i it Hi h S h l f I d Fi W llt i Ltd

Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria

President Mr. Peter Lithgow AES Corporation

Vice President Mr. Alex Nestor Individual Member

Vice President Mr. Daniel Berg European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

Treasurer Ms. Petya Dimitrova Eurobank Bulgaria

Members Mr. Borislav Dimitrov Cisco Systems Bulgaria

Mr. David Butts CMS Cameron McKenna EOOD

Ms. Diana Pazaitova Fama Consulting

Mr. George Brashnarov Nemetscheck Bulgaria

Ms. Krassimira Chemishanska Amgen Bulgaria

Mr. Sergey Koynov Forton International

Mr. Solomon Passy Atlantic Club Bulgaria

Mr. Venislav Yotov AIG Europe Limited (Bulgaria Branch)

Ex-Officio Member Mr. Thomas Bruns Senior Commercial Officer, U.S. Embassy

Executive Director Mr. Valentin Georgiev

c o v e r s t o r y

4

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

Bulgaria is known in the IT circles as a country having one of the fastest and highest-quality internet connections. For years it has ranked among the top countries in connectivity to the global network. But there is a lesser known fact that is typical of the region: the increasing popularity of cloud services among small businesses. A survey conducted by Ipsos MORI and com-missioned by software giant Microsoft shows that nearly 67 percent of small enterprises in Bulgaria with a staff of up to 25 use some type of cloud ser-vice. The survey was conducted in 2013 in 22 countries in the region and nearly 7,000 companies were inter-viewed. It shows that two-thirds (65 percent) of small and medium-sized enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe already use at least one cloud service, compared with 45 percent in

Several factors can explain the inter-est of businesses to such products. The first is that small firms are gradu-ally beginning of digitalize part of their business with a growing number of companies maintaining websites or pages in the social media. The second is the development of the IT industry in the country, which, together with out-sourcing, is one of the few sectors that continued growing during the eco-nomic crisis. That has encouraged the entry of international giants and estab-lished corporations which prefer using local resources for IT maintenance of their business. The advance of the whole sector has led to the opening of small development units using cheap outsourced services. In addition, the startup environment has seen a boost in the past two years with a lot of startup firms developing more and

last but not least important factor is the economic crisis, which forced many established corporations to start look-ing for solutions to optimize their costs. Very often their needs can be met by cloud services.

Types of cloud formations

The world of cloud services is very diverse. Actually, even the simple email is such kind of a product. In gen-eral, the industry divides cloud servic-es into three main business catego-ries. Each of them is focused on a specific component of the cloud, so depending on the focus cloud services can target the following three areas: infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS) or software (SaaS). The first includes providing physical machines and vir-

Up in the Air A growing number of businesses in Bulgaria use cloud services

5p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

c o v e r s t o r y

functioning of the other elements. These are servers, data centers, net-works, virtual computers etc. PaaS builds on the infrastructure by laying the operating system and the whole digital environment that is necessary for installing the applications and the additional services for end-consumers. The last category is the software itself that provides the cloud services.

Very often this category includes the development of custom-made applica-tions that have to satisfy the needs of a certain business.

Who offers what

The good development of cloud ser-vices in Bulgaria can be best tracked in the source of digital information: the data centers. There are many local companies that have built such infrastructure to offer it to businesses. The largest such center is that of 3DC in Sofia. The company was acquired by British giant and sector leader in Europe TeleCity Group for 17.9 mil-lion �uro in late 2013. The company assessed the market of this type of services in Bulgaria at 5.5 million �uro in 2012, expected it to grow by a two-digit figure in 2013 and continue growing in the current year. Besides the interest of large players in the sector to the Bulgarian data center market, we can get an idea about the prospects of that business from the ambitions of smaller players too. In 2012 Neterra opened its second cen-ter and a year later it invested an additional amount of money in expand-ing its capacity. With the very opening of the expanded center, its whole

capacity was already reserved by cli-ents.

Other local players with operating data centers are Info Data, Evolink, Daticum etc. Besides them, two of the large telecommunications companies in Bulgaria – Mobiltel and BTC – also have such infrastructure but they use it mainly for providing the other two types of services: platforms and soft-ware for small and medium-sized busi-nesses.

Most data center operators provide more than just hardware for business: they often expand their portfolio with more advanced and completed ser-vices. Neterra for instance has launched a cloud platform, Cloudware, which has become a separate startup within the framework of the company. It uses the data center of the telecom to build on it and provide more devel-oped services.

Most large platforms for cloud solu-tions are accessible in Bulgaria and some of the most popular are Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS. Besides, a lot of established names in the IT area have started developing applications not only for large corpo-rate customers but also for small busi-nesses. They have less functionality but are suitable for companies that are not of the scale of Coca-Cola for instance. All that additionally reduces prices and makes software and cloud solutions increasingly accessible.

In favor of business

The growing accessibility of these

solutions opens the door to small busi-nesses. The solutions do not only allow companies to optimize their operations and costs by transferring some activities into the cloud and making them accessible from any-where and from each and every device. Most of the customers of cloud prod-ucts in Bulgaria are large corporations like telecoms, financial institutions (banks and insurance companies), internet-based companies and local subsidiaries of large international giants. In other words, these are com-panies that benefit directly from cloud services or the development of such services is part of the strategy of their parent companies. To a great extent that is true for the IT and outsourcing sector, which also uses and develops such technologies. Cloud services, however, are expected to gradually become popular in not so high-tech industries, such as retail etc. The access to such instruments fosters the development of the next generation of businesses. For instance, the TaxiMe application, which allows you to call a taxi through your smart phone or tab-let, uses Amazon’s cloud services to drive its software. Another example is Mokovi, which provides software and free space for storing information and synchronizing it with other devices. The model is similar to that of DropBox.

Connected in this way, the various clouds will gradually start covering all areas of economy: from corporations, through small and medium-sized busi-nesses to ordinary consumers. In Bulgaria, these processes are full steam ahead. �

c o v e r s t o r y

6

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

-Cloud technologies are still a hot topic worldwide and will most probably stay hot for the next 5 years. Yet, the idea has reshaped with the years and it’s now going to a segmentation of public, private and hybrid clouds. It comes from the importance that companies define of critical information security. Usually, organizations, which are very sensitive to their company database and IT infrastructure, are going for private Clouds, rather than public ones. The hybrid solutions are a good way to keep the most sensitive information within the company, and bring into Cloud the operational data.

The IT market is changing in, let’s say, two directions, regarding Cloud solutions:

1) The appearance of more business for Data centers;

2) The emerging of new software technolo-gies, allowing faster response times and big data processing- shifting focus from hard-ware to software.

Due to the development of Cloud technolo-gies, data centers flourished and gave busi-ness to many companies worldwide. For security reasons, data in the Cloud is always kept on, at least, 2 data centers in different world locations. But while the hardware matter is being solved by more powerful machines and just a bigger number of data centers, everyone started to look for software technologies. One of the big challenges is to get faster response times, while processing big data. So, this is the focus of the software companies, to deliver technologies, which are able to handle the matter. The important thing is that Cloud technologies change not only the IT market, but all other sectors, giv-ing them new opportunities for costs optimi-zation, data security, process improvements etc. This is why it is getting so popular world-wide.

As it comes to the influence on the Bulgarian market it is still in the beginning of Cloud

technologies adoption. It’s starting from the end-users and transferring to business, with applications, such as Dropbox, Web mail, Google docs etc. Temps are slow, because business is still timid in terms of data secu-rity, when it is not in their possession. Furthermore, the economic crisis and politi-cal instability in the last few years moved many companies in surviving mode rather, which lead to decreased IT budget. However Cloud can be an answer to the limited bud-gets as well.

- As a software development company, we are creating software solutions upon require-ments of our worldwide partners. Within the last few years, everyone has been going Cloud. If not the whole software solution, at least some new features, modules or mobile applications are definitely going into Cloud.

New development frameworks such as Django, MongoDB, Python, etc. are mas-sively used in our projects for US and West European clients.

Concerning local BG and regional Eastern European markets we are successfully offer-ing number of cloud-based products starting with DocuWare Online a solution to store

search, view, download, edit and integrate documents and other company information securely in the Cloud. DocuWare Online is a horizontal solution which serves different departments (Accounting, Sales, HR, Purchasing and many more) in every busi-ness organization.

We are now starting to offer more collabora-tive cloud-based products for full integrated management of the construction industry – from Design Phase (VectorWorks Cloud) through Build Phase to the Manage Phase (FM Center).

It is extremely important nowadays to keep the complex construction/infrastructural proj-ects in integrity from day one – using com-mon BIM (Building Information Model) and cloud-based open-architecture solutions like mentioned above.

Main driving factors for better offering are:� No maintenance of hardware or software;� Always available – from anywhere;� No worrying about backups and long-term

archiving.

- Cloud solutions allow companies to go more into service providing than doing the operational work. It inevitably changes pro-cesses that companies and organizations follow. Cloud solutions are a good way for business process optimization, which leads to a better productivity, agility and even costs reduction.

Furthermore, many cloud solutions, particu-larly as they relate to SaaS, will require increasingly less involvement from the IT department. Business users will be able to adopt many future cloud computing solu-tions entirely using self-service.

- Speaking worldwide – front-runners in developing Cloud solutions are usually the big players in the ICT sector, which is no surprise And the first implementations are in

Cloud Solutions Allow Companies to Go More into Service Providing

By Irina Bacheva

- There is a big discussion that cloud services and big data as part of the 3d Platform will greatly reshape the IT market. What are your predictions for market changes regarding cloud solu-tions, and particularly how the Bulgarian market would be affected?

- What is your experience in offering cloud solutions and in which indus-try? Please name your platforms.

- How will the 3rd Platform reshape business processes in companies and organizations?

- Which industries/businesses are front - runners in developing and applying cloud solutions?

- How cloud solutions can change/have already changed our everyday lives?

AmCham asked George Brashnarov General Manager, Nemetschek Bulgaria, Petar Ivanov, General Manager Microsoft, Klod Kolaro, Country Managing Director, Oracle and Neli Vacheva, IDC Bulgaria:

George Brashnarov General Manager, Nemetschek

Bulgaria

7p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

c o v e r s t o r y

- The enterprise move to the cloud is indeed going to be huge with a potential IT market of more than 2 trillion dollars – and that move is just getting started. To be the leader in this next era of enterprise cloud you must:

� Have best-in-class first-party SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications– on your cloud

� Operate a public cloud – at massive, global scale – that supports a broad range of third parties

� Deliver true hybrid cloud capabilities that provide multi-cloud mobility

- Microsoft is delivering best-in-class first party software-as-a-service applications: Business services like Office 365, Yammer, Dynamics CRM, and consumer services like Bing, Outlook.com, Xbox Live and more than 200 other services. The widespread

f i lik Offi 365 id

foundation for other critical cloud technolo-gies that enterprises will adopt, such as identity and application management.We are delivering a global public cloud platform in Windows Azure – the only public cloud with fully supported infrastructure and plat-f i Wi d A i il bl i

109 countries, including China, and sup-ports 10 languages and 19 currencies, all backed by the $15 billion we’ve invested in global datacenter infrastructure.

Microsoft is also delivering hybrid solutions that help enterprises build their own clouds with consistency, enable them to move with-out friction across clouds, and let them use the public cloud in conjunction with their own clouds. Our hybrid approach spans infra-structure, application development, data platform and device management, and we build these solutions with the insight we get from running massive first-party applications and our own public cloud. We’re living and learning at cloud scale, and we are engi-neering on cloud time.

- �s customers move forward with cloud and look for the right partner to bet on, a key measure will be simplicity and how well a vendor ties together devices, applications,

those services-oriented businesses, which is natural, because as we said, Cloud is giv-ing tools for more service providing.

In Bulgaria it is clear that most of the soft-ware companies develop Cloud solutions, just because so many of them are working for International customers.

But as it comes to applying these solu-tions, front-runners are the offices of International companies, almost regard-less the industry.

- Cloud computing is changing our lives in many ways. We are, as never before, see-ing cloud technology impact our world on many levels. Just to mention few:

EducationSome educational institutions have been quick to realize the advantages of cloud technology and have been eagerly adopting it for several reasons, including:

� Ability for the students to access data any-where, anytime, to enroll in online classes and to participate in group activities

� The value of combining business automa-tion processes to streamline subscription, class enrollments and assignment track-ing, thus reducing expenses significantly

� Ability for the institutional body to leverage the storage cloud to store the daily 2.5 quintillion bytes of data securely and with-out the need to cater to a complicated

infrastructure� The benefit of process billing and charging

for education and non-education related activities

While these are probably most obvious in a mature and developed market, cloud com-puting technology also offers benefits to stu-dents from developing countries. Access is now instantly available and in many instanc-es free thanks to the proliferation of websites dispensing educational material and cloud knowledge-sharing communities.

Social / Business ImpactThe likes of YouTube and Google are testi-mony to a shift in how people are now inter-acting with others. From remote locations to the global center stage, an event can reach the four corners of the planet by going viral.

Taking advantage of developments in cloud technology and the social media space has allowed different actors access to sophisti-cated analytical abilities. As an example of that, businesses are now increasingly using data from social media platforms in combina-tion with cloud-based information resources to get better insights on potential services, innovations and customer requirements.

DevelopmentCloud technology also offers other benefits to developing countries since they no longer have the burden of investing in costly infra-

structures and can tap into data and applica-tions that are readily available in the cloud. Same applies to other areas, such as bank-ing, agriculture, health and science.

Take as an example the telecom industry, whereby these developing countries have been fast embracing the smart mobile tech-nology that accelerated development by leaping over the traditional wire and copper infrastructure.

HealthThere are many reasons why using cloud technology in the healthcare industry is gain-ing pace. Some examples include: manag-ing non-siloed patient data and sharing it among different parties such as medical professionals or patients checking their own status and treatment follow-ups; reducing operational costs such as data storage; accessing this data through pervasive devic-es such as mobile phones and going beyond the traditional intranet; implementing a quick solution in a secure environment that is com-pliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations.

While there may be challenges in integrating old or current tools with new technologies and the corresponding level of services, the benefits will outweigh the inhibition to move to the cloud. According to the industry, healthcare will be a growing market in the coming years, running into the billions. �

Cloud is a Once-in-a-Generation Technology Advancement to Reimagine Business

Petar Ivanov, General Manager Microsoft

c o v e r s t o r y

8

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

- Cloud, social, mobile and big data are transforming how business gets done. Cloud solutions have changed not only the world-wide market but also our everyday lives. Cloud is changing the market mindset in exploring modern approaches to boosting sales, building brands, supporting custom-ers, empowering employees, planning effec-tively, creating apps or managing informa-tion. Businesses have started to realize that the cloud is a significant advancement in the delivery of information technology and ser-vices, because it offers compelling advan-tages in cost, speed and efficiency by pro-viding on demand access to a shared pool of resources in a self-service, dynamically scaled and metered manner. Therefore many companies have retailored their port-folio and have started to offer cloud services. Some companies, as Oracle, predicted these changes and were prepared not only to face but to be proactively engaged in these market changes. It is a fact that Oracle has invested nearly 7 years and billions of dollars in engineering and strategic acquisi-tions to provide this world's most compre-hensive portfolio of enterprise-grade cloud services Oracle Cloud is a strategic offering

within Oracle's portfolio. I’m deeply con-vinced that Oracle complete and flexible portfolio of cloud services products, and the strategic investments in Oracle Cloud, not only has stable leading position in cloud solutions but is going to lead cloud comput-ing in the future. Bulgarian market is already affected by the cloud trend. Although the market in Bulgaria has this cautious ten-dency to adopt and implement IT innovation with a slight delay, as for example SOA and BPM, this time the demand for cloud will be felt more quickly I presume first private sec

tor companies and then public sector orga-nizations will refer Oracle for cloud solutions, because nowadays they recognized us not only as leading vendor of database and middleware products, but also as a leader in cloud solutions.

- Oracle's Cloud mission is to bring its lead-ing enterprise technology and business applications software to customers from any industry, anywhere in the world, through the internet. Customers are adopting cloud computing in many different ways. Oracle's strategy is to offer them choice and flexibility with the broadest, most complete portfolio of cloud services and products that enable the cloud. Oracle's cloud offerings span public and private clouds and its entire product portfolio - applications, middleware, data-base, servers, storage, networking, and asso�ciated OS and virtualization software. To provide organizations with flexibility and choice according to their business needs, Oracle offers three general cloud deploy-ment models:

Oracle Public Cloud – you consume on a subscription basis Oracle cloud services,

hi h h t d i th O l l d

in the enterprise and our new offerings, Microsoft is the company that customers can bet on to connect it all at every stage of IT. Microsoft’s new portfolio of enterprise IT solu-tions will help businesses successfully embrace cloud computing, empower employ-ee productivity and create new applications.

Cloud computing is no longer the preserve of larger enterprises. Now small and medi-um-sized businesses can subscribe to IT services that are hosted by a third party, typically paying a monthly subscription based on the number of PCs that access this software. Services typically include email, customer relationship management systems or web conferencing. You get to focus on your business rather than the cost and hassle of running IT services on prem-ise. You pay for what you want at the time that you need it, and if your requirements change, you simply change your subscrip-tion. This means it is also easier to manage your cash flow and you don’t need upfront capital investment.

- It’s a rare technology conversation today that doesn’t include the cloud platform. Cloud is a once-in-a-generation technology

advancement, and our customers are using the power of cloud to reimagine their busi-nesses—whether by accelerating innova-tion, enabling new business scenarios, speeding time to market, or driving cost sav-ings.

We believe it’s no longer a question of if but when most companies will adopt cloud tech-nologies. At a time when everything has gone mobile, when social computing is redefining how people communicate, and when data stores are exploding and leading to new insights, the cloud platform is the key enabler. Our customers are using cloud to support collaboration through social to speed innovation. They are looking to the cloud as they build and deliver apps to reach new customers in new ways. They are rely-ing on the cloud as they store, manage, and analyze huge volumes of data to identify opportunities to target customers in more effective ways or optimize their operations.

With Microsoft cloud solutions, you can put tools and data in the hands of your leaders to uncover insights for competitive advan-tage. You can enable your employees to collaborate and work on the go, so inspira-tion can come from anywhere. You can

make social an intrinsic part of the business, so you can be more fully connected and engaged internally and reach customers in new ways externally. And with our hybrid public and private cloud platform, you can optimize your IT and deliver flexible, respon-sive services to your business users. We deliver people-focused cloud experiences through comprehensive, enterprise-grade cloud services.

People want the flexibility to work from any-where with technology that is easy to use. For years Microsoft has been focused on helping users work as productively as pos-sible, regardless of location or device. This doesn’t change with the cloud. Our cloud tools are consistent, familiar, and intuitive, helping drive faster and lower-cost imple-mentations and high user adoption, for bet-ter productivity and business results. For example, users can sign in with their Microsoft account to any PC running Windows 8 and immediately see their own background, display preferences, and set-tings. With Office 365, they get anywhere access to familiar Office tools, plus enter-prise-grade email, conferencing, collabora-tion, and enterprise social capabilities. �

Cloud is Powerful Vehicle for Aligning Business Strategy with IT and Driving Business Transformation

Klod Kolaro, Country Managing Director

c o v e r s t o r y

10

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

don’t purchase any licenses or support. More specifically, Oracle Public Cloud is a set of industry-standards based, integrated services that provide customers with sub-scription-based access to broad selection of enterprise-grade cloud solutions, including software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), data as a service (DaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), all completely managed, hosted and supported by Oracle.

Managed Cloud - Oracle builds and man-ages a private cloud for you. Oracle delivers end-to-end managed cloud services across its broad portfolio of business applications, middleware, database, and hardware tech-nologies, as the solutions are optimized and engineered for performance and efficiency. Oracle Managed Cloud Services are critical and proven part of Oracle’s broader cloud offerings and enable organizations to lever-age their Oracle investments to extend into the cloud with greater value, choice and confidence.

Private Cloud – you build and manage your own cloud using Oracle cloud products. Oracle reduces the cost and complexity of building your private cloud by delivering a fully integrated stack of cloud products. These products offer compelling advantages by providing clouds at a variety of levels: application, platform, and infrastructure. Built on a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class, integrated products and services, Oracle’s private cloud supports application-, platform-, and infrastructure-level clouds, with deep visibility into security, lifecycle management, regulatory compliance, and service levels.

I’d like to point out that Oracle Cloud is pow-ered by leading enterprise-grade infrastruc-ture, including Oracle engineered systems Exadata and Exalogic, providing customers and partners with a high-performance, reli-able, and secure infrastructure for running critical enterprise class business applica-tions both as a private cloud and a public cloud as well as transparently move work-loads between private and public clouds.

- While cost is still a primary driver for cloud, improved business agility and faster innova-tion are growing factors for cloud adoption. The cloud, if done right, can be a powerful vehicle for aligning your business strategy with IT and driving business transformation. The promise of cloud computing is not only for IT but for all line of business. Oracle considers cloud as a solution for each stake-holder: it shall empower developers with agility and quality, IT operations with stan-

and line of business with rich business insight, collaboration, innovation and speed. Adopting a cloud solution based on highly fragmented platform and infrastructure will increase complexity and cost, will decrease effectiveness and after all will fail. Offering a wide range of business applications and platform services, the Oracle Cloud is the only cloud to enable customers to avoid the data and business process fragmentation that occurs when using multiple, siloed pub-lic clouds. Oracle is crossing the “Cloud Chasm” by providing Oracle IaaS - a high performance, scalable and elastic infrastruc-ture; Oracle PaaS - one platform for all on-premise integration services (SOA), busi-ness processes (BPM), security, data and management services; and flexible deploy-ment choice - private, managed or public cloud.

-Many worldwide customers from different industries nowadays run Oracle cloud solu-tions. You can found on Oracle site (oracle.com) hundredth of customer references and success stories, from all industries, empha-sizing on successful adoption and imple-mentation of Oracle cloud solutions. Since Oracle offers a complete and flexible cloud deployment choice practically any company from any industry can develop and apply Oracle cloud solutions, but I would say it is

reasoned decision as to whether and which cloud services to utilize.

- As I said in the beginning, cloud solutions have already changed our everyday lives. Cloud, social, mobile and big data are trans-forming how business gets done, but also cloud technology impact our world on many levels: social, health, education, develop-ment etc. As for example, businesses more and more combine data from social media platforms with cloud-based information resources for getting insights on innovations for better customer services; health institu-tion are now using cloud technology to man-age non-siloed patient data and to enable sharing and accessing the data through pervasive devices such as mobile phones; educational institutions take advantages of cloud technology to enable students to access data anywhere, anytime, to enroll in virtual classes and group activities; cloud technology is beneficial for developing coun-tries as they no longer have the burden of investing in costly infrastructures and can just use data and applications that are already available in the cloud. Oracle always proactively responds to changes and nowa-days we provide a broad range of integrated Oracle social cloud services as for example Oracle Social Marketing Cloud Service, Oracle Data and Insight Cloud Service,

Small Companies are the Primary Users of Public Cloud Services- In 2012, total market spending around cloud delivery (public, virtual private, and private) in Bulgaria totaled $3.68 million. Total cloud servic-es-related spending represented 0.33% of all IT spending in Bulgaria. The public cloud category accounted for the largest share of cloud services revenue in 2012, at 64.7%. IDC projects spend-ing on cloud services in Bulgaria will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.8% over the five-year forecast period to reach $15.8 million in 2017.

- Moving to cloud will allow businesses to auto-mate their business through increasing the rollout of business applications tied to revenue genera-tion; may reduce average costs to deliver servic-es by 60-70%; reduces risk by increasing services reliability by over 80%; increases business agility while reducing the time to deploy new applications and run new busi-ness processes by 50-60%. Every $1 spent migrating to Public or Private cloud will yield $3 - $5 and pay for itself within 18 months.

- The small service and software development companies are the primary users of public cloud services in Bulgaria. �

Neli Vacheva, IDC Bulgaria

e u a f f a i r s

12

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

Fund absorption is a question of nation-al interest. The European Union is the largest investor in Bulgaria. Some 72 percent of all public investments are European funds. But why is the admin-istration’s attitude towards this potential resource for the Bulgarian economy not always so responsible?

In the early days of the caretaker gov-ernment’s term there came the first piece of good news from Brussels. The European Commission (EC) signed a

which is a strategic document for the allocation of funds in the period 2014-2020. In the next seven years Bulgaria will receive nearly 10 billion Euro, which is 700 million Euro more than in the previous period.

Under the seven operational programs Bulgaria will receive 7.6 billion Euro; together with the funding for rural devel-opment and for fisheries the resources increase to 9.9 billion Euro. When direct payments worth 5.3 billion Euro and

amount reaches 15.8 billion Euro.

This year, however, will be a gap year for all European programs, except for human resource development. The caretaker government is considering launching a youth employment scheme. The rule is that three months after the agreement between the respective country and the EC is adopted, the pro-grams have to be approved. So far 15 countries, including Bulgaria, of all 28 member states have approved agree-

Good News: Brussels Gives Bulgaria $16 Billion by 2020The European Commission has signed the partnership agreement with Bulgaria,

which will demand serious reforms

Elected President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker gives a press conference to announce the attribution of portfolios of European Commissioners-

designate at EU commission headquaters in Brussels. The new European commission start is activities on the 01 November 2014.

13p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

e u a f f a i r s

If funding is intensively absorbed, Bulgaria’s GDP is expected to grow by 8.7 percent by 2020 and the nominal average wage will increase with 37.2 percent. Calculations show a rise by 43.1 percent in private investments, 32 percent in public investments, and 6 percent higher employment after the funds are absorbed.

The managing and certification authori-ties will be determined by the beginning of next year in order to make fund pay-ments possible. Meanwhile the prepared procedures can start – for instance the construction of the metro in Sofia. That can be done with budget resources, which will be consequently recovered by the European Union (EU).

It is very important though to provide for advance project financing in the 2015 budget. To make that happen, Bulgaria needs a regular government elected by the parliament and not a caretaker cabi-net, experts say.

Most probably until 2016 Bulgaria will not have any financing for water-supply and sewerage projects. The reason for this is that Brussels has changed its approach for the new program period, so it will only finance projects covering regions and not separate municipalities.

start preparing such projects, which will take time. That is why the gap will have to be bridged with money from the national budget.

As a matter of fact

the final agreement with the EC is the product of three governments. Social and business partners, local authorities and non-government organizations also contributed significantly. The first texts were ready and negotiations start-ed as early as during GERB’s govern-ment term and after several corrections from Brussels the final version of the agreement was finalized – a month before Plamen Oresharski’s govern-ment resigned. The EC requested a clearer and more detailed list of mea-sures for serious reforms in healthcare, education, public administration and water resource utilization. That was done. That is why the Oresharski administration could not understand why the EC’s final signature was being delayed, given that all the work had been done in the short term of the government.

According to Johannes Hahn, European commissioner for regional policy, the agreement is a vital strategic plan that sets Bulgaria on the path to jobs and

quality, not speed of fund absorption will be important in the coming months.

This partnership agreement covering all structural and investment funds in Bulgaria will give a strategic direction to future programs that will create jobs, transform Bulgarian small and medium-sized enterprises into models of growth, and support environmentally friendly growth in the Bulgarian cities as well, Hahn said.

His spokesperson Shirin Wheeler announced that the EC was also plan-ning to approve the operational pro-grams by this year’s end, which would allow Bulgaria to actually use the funds.

At the very beginning of the agreement negotiations Brussels required from Bulgaria to reform healthcare, educa-tion and other sectors. The changes can no longer be put off and the EC will partner with us in the process, Deputy Prime Minister Iliana Tsanova said. Bulgaria has to make progress with the reforms by 2016: if the public procure-ment sector is not reformed, the EC will have the right to suspend payments on all operational programs.

If no reforms are carried out in the water sector, which is a major require-

1. Good governance2. Transport and transport infrastructure3. Regions in growth4. Human resource development5. Innovation and competitiveness6. Environment7. Science and education for intelligent growth8. Rural development program9. Maritime and fisheries program

Bulgaria’s commitments:� By 2020 the number of people living in poverty should

decrease drastically, employment should rise to 76 percent from 63.5 percent now, and youth unemployment should drop nearly four times, to 7 percent.

� For its funding Brussels also requires that energy efficiency in Bulgaria should increase with 25 percent, the share of renew-able energy sources should rise to 16 percent, and Bulgaria should invest much more resources in research and innova-

tion. � The number of school dropouts should be reduced and that of

young university graduates should increase; the time for pro-viding administrative services should fall by half.

The partnership agreement will provide nearly 16 billion Euro investments in Bulgaria: for cities, towns and villages, agricul-ture, unemployment and environment. That is a clear plan for investments and reforms aimed at an improved quality of life. The financing however will only be provided if reforms are conducted in key sectors. European investments will help tackle unemployment and boost competitiveness and eco-nomic growth through support to innovation, training and education in cities, towns and rural areas. They will also pro-mote entrepreneurship, fight social exclusion and help to develop an environmentally friendly and resource-efficient economy. The final version of the partnership agreement was approved by the Council of Ministers on July 21 and sent to the EC the following day.

Nine operational programs agreed for the 2014-2020 program period:

e u a f f a i r s

14

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

the intermediate payments will be stopped. These are not stumbling blocks, these are requirements to Bulgaria, Tsanova commented.

Risks until the end of 2014

Bulgaria may lose nearly 194 million Euro by this year’s end by failing to absorb European funds, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of EU funds Iliana Tsanova said.

As much as 1.333 billion Leva is planned to be paid by the end of 2014 but so far only 449 million Leva has been disbursed. The situation is the worst with the environment and region-al development programs, which have been suspended. Bulgaria may lose 90 million Leva for regional development mainly due to the lack of signed con-tracts. Still, in Tsanova’s words, there is a chance for restoring payments. There are 66 contracts worth 231 million Leva that are currently being verified and the funding may be absorbed. Some 82 million Euro may be lost under the envi-ronment program, which is the largest one, because more than 200 payment requests have not been processed.

A KPMG report also foresees losses for Bulgaria. The auditing firm says that the financial effect of the corrections imposed under the operational pro-grams of the EU structural and the cohesion funds by Dec. 31, 2013 amounted to 166 million Leva. The cor-rections made up 1.9 percent of the funds granted. More than three-quar-ters of all financial corrections were imposed under the environment and regional development programs: 91.7 million Euro and 36.3 million Leva respectively.

The high percentage of financial cor-rections mirrors the need for measures that would boost the administrative capacity of the respective managing bodies, and the main groups of eligible beneficiaries under them, KPMG points out.

Some 74 percent of the imposed finan-cial corrections were linked to public procurement, while in almost three-quarters of the cases they were imposed by the managing authorities. The fre-

tions was highest under the two opera-tional programs which were affected by an EU fund freeze imposed by Brussels, with every second grant agreement stained by a financial correction. Under all operational programs except for environment, the majority of the finan-cial corrections were imposed in rela-tion to irregularities registered after the payment of the grants.

Poor organization and insufficient capacity prevent the managing authori-ties from fulfilling all their tasks, Tsanova said. One and the same mistakes are

main reason for the loss of EU funds. She explained that the caretaker gov-ernment was working to restore the payments on projects that have the proper documents in order to avoid halting the construction season and delaying the wages of thousands of workers. The government is also work-ing to restore its dialogue with the EC.

The situation with the two agricultural programs – on rural development and on fisheries – is extremely disturbing, agriculture minister Vasil Grudev said. Bulgaria risks losing between 53 and

“A new challenge ahead soon! I was just named European Commission (EC) vice presi-dent-designate for budget and human resources. Thank you to President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker for your trust and thank you all for your support!” Kristalina Georgieva wrote in her Facebook profile.

Georgieva has shown impec-cable service in the current commission and has built an impressive network of interna-tional contacts, Juncker pointed out.

In her new position, the Bulgarian representative in the EC will work closely with the other vice presidents and guide the work of the European com-missioners. She will monitor the directorates general for budget, human resources, translation, and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

Georgieva will also monitor services payments and appointments, infrastructure and logistics. Her responsibilities will also extend to the European Personnel Selection Office and European School of Administration.

Another Bulgarian in a key EC position, Mina Andreeva, will be one of the three principal spokespeople for the commission. Andreeva previously was spokesperson for Vivian Reding, European justice and fundamental rights commissioner.

c a r e e r s

Kristalina Georgieva to be vice president and commissioner for budget and human resources in the next European Commission

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 10

September 2014 proposed Georgieva as EU Vice President for

Budget and Human Resources.

15p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

e u a f f a i r s

and between 4 and 5 million Euro under the second one. Grudev also said that he would seek support from Brussels for the losses Bulgaria was expected to suffer from the Russian embargo, which were assessed at between 5 and 10 million Leva. The problem was the indirect losses that would affect mainly Bulgarian fruit and vegetable growers, because the Bulgarian market was facing the risk of being flooded by unsold produce from the EU. The minister also said that confirmation had been received from the EC services for the development of schemes for compensation of agri-cultural producers in several direc-tions.

Bulgaria has absorbed 30 percent of the agreed funds in seven years.

During the seven-year period since Bulgaria joined the EU the local author-ities have absorbed a touch above 30 percent of the agreed European funds, that is, an average of 1,000 Leva per capita. The total amount absorbed by municipalities is 2.5 billion Leva, anoth-er 5 billion Leva or so has been agreed. The funds are allocated for road repairs,

construction of water-treatment plants and landfills. An economic analysis shows that it is not always the big municipalities that carry out the most projects. In most cases, however,

municipalities have used less than 400 Leva per capita. Some cities have agreed millions of financing, but the local authorities are lagging behind in their absorption. �

StatisticsBulgaria is a constant poor performer in European fund absorption. In terms of pay-ments, Bulgaria ranks 24th out of 28 member states, statistics for the 2007-2013 program period show. By this indicator, Bulgaria is on par with Italy and is only fol-lowed by Slovakia, Romania and Croatia.

The data are disturbing, because nearly three-quarters of all public investments in Bulgaria come from the European funds. Their share is 72 percent and the rest is budget financing.

The most developed economies are the least dependent on European funds. Their share in public expenditure in Germany is just 4 percent; in Belgium, Sweden and Austria, 2 percent; in Denmark, 1 percent; and in Luxembourg, 0 percent. Countries with a high percentage of European funds in their public financing are Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia: 75, 80 and 85 percent, respectively.

By Aug. 15 the absorption of the total budget of European programs in Bulgaria was around 52 percent of more than 8 billion Euro. According to the rule for fund spending after 2013, until the end of this year Bulgaria has to absorb 1.333 billion Euro and another 2.241 billion Euro by the end of 2015.

Besides the small share of actual European fund payments, Bulgaria also loses money from blocked programs and projects, poor administrative capacity, delayed construction permit and land expropriation procedures.

Former Bulgarian Premier Plamen Oresharski and Prof. Georgi Bliznashki, Prime Minister in the current caretaker government during a ceremony in the Council of

a n a l y s i s

16

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

It’s a war, stupid!

That’s how Garry Kasparov addresses the West over Ukraine. Kasparov is not a nobody: a former chess genius from the former USSR, a former world champion, a Russian opposition figure and chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.

Garry Kasparov’s text is daring, just like his chess debuts. He speaks of nothing less than black-is-white Putin propaganda that meets a vocabulary of cowardice and Western rhetoric of appeasement on the part of Berlin and Washington.

I think Polish intellectual Adam Michnik was the first to say when I talked with him in February that 'The analogy is clear – 1938 – and so is the parallel: Ukraine is compared to

concrete proposals, the chess-player has two main ideas: “sanctions should broaden” and

“Ukraine must be armed!”

And here we should admit the analogy no longer works. You make a comparison with the Second World War but you sug-gest measures that would be too small even for the Cold War. You throw heavy words but you are not ready to take heavy action.

Indeed, what should the West do?

Yes, it is a real war in Ukraine. But in the fog of the battle even the most obvious fact seems hard to prove. Let’s take Russia’s involvement on the spot. One can hardly doubt it. But each

Russia, West , Ukraine:Few Good Moves

By Boyko Vassilev

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (L) and Jose Manuel Barroso (R), outgoing President of the European Commission, attend their meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, 12

September 2014. The European Union is pledging an extra 22 million euros (28.4 million dollars) to help people in the regions of Ukraine worst hit by the conf lict.

17p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

a n a l y s i s

propaganda machine.

They catch a Russian soldier on Ukrainian territory. Russia says: “He has lost his way and crossed the border unknow-ingly.” They catch more of them.

Russia says: “These are Russian soldiers on furlough.” At the same time the Russian media show Ukrainian soldiers on Russian territory who have retreated to avoid being killed by the separatists. The question is not how many people believe these counter-arguments and excuses – the believers are not many. But those who do not want to or cannot risk a prolonged confrontation with Russia now have a thin line to retreat: “It’s a war. Both sides are killing people. Both should make compro-mises.”

Nevertheless President Barack Obama would not retreat. He cannot be accused of not saying the truth – the truth as he sees it. “Russia is responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine," he said. "This ongoing Russian incursion into Ukraine will only bring more costs and consequences for Russia.” But what are they? For a beginning, the president excluded only one option: “We are not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem.”

Consequently, there remain the two measures we mentioned above: sanctions and arming Ukraine. Both, however, come

with unknowns. Aren’t they too soft if you want to punish Russia – or too hard if you want to preserve an opportunity for dialogue?

There have been a lot of myths about the sanctions. No, it is not true that they do more damage to the West than to Russia. On the contrary, the Russian economy is much more depen-dent on the Western one than vice versa. And no, the sanc-tions

are not a propaganda gift for Putin,

because they deliver a heavy blow on those specific person-alities who criticize the West but who send their children to study at its prestigious colleges. But ever since Napoleon’s continental blockade in the early 19th century one thing has been clear: it is hard to force a big state into submission. It can always muster sufficient internal resources to prop itself up.

Arming Ukraine is an increasingly popular idea. It was expressed by the journalist and specialist in Russia Ben Judah: “Arm Ukraine or surrender!” The idea is probably good. But how many armaments does Ukraine need to get to make up for a gradual and increasingly visible Russian interference? There is another good warning for the Western leaders: former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili. Armed and reformed, he gained confidence – and in the summer of 2008 he gave in

Soldiers of different countries attend the opening ceremony of joint military exercises near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Ukraine, 15 September 2014. The Rapid

Trident 2014 drill kicked off early 15 September at the Yavoriv military base in western Ukraine, close to the border with Poland. The exercise, which is set to last

until 26 September involves some 1,300 troops from 12 NATO members including Germany, Britain, Poland, Lithuania and Canada, as well as non-NATO members

a n a l y s i s

18

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

to a provocation that cost him a lot – a lost war for his country and an election loss for himself.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not playing a devil’s advocate. I am just saying how hard it is for the Western leaders to find a solution. It is twice harder for the Democrat and peace-lover Barack Obama. Do you remember how he became president? He was one of the few who did not back the war in Iraq in 2003. Then he promised withdrawal from Iraq and did it. And today he is facing “an increasingly confused world” (as he himself called it talking about the social networks) in which good has to take a sword reluctantly to protect and establish order.

We should note that there is a man who perfectly knows the Western dilemmas. That man is called Vladimir Putin. He knows who his potential allies are in the European Union and expects them to step up against their own leaders.

Russophile Socialists exemplify the type of people Vladimir Putin’s policy targets in Central and Eastern Europe, where pro-Russian feelings mix with leftist sympathies and commu-nist nostalgia. All over the region extreme lefties cheer on the strongman in Moscow. He reminds them of the old days, when they were “The Second World” facing “the First”; a major player in the Cold War, which they lost spectacularly. Now they can retaliate.

Yet Putin also has a message for the West, where he targets the far right. His propaganda has something to say to the anti-multi-culti, anti-gay, and anti-immigrant tide in Western Europe: “We can openly say what you are not allowed to say. We do not shy away from hard words like nationalism, pride, and force. We symbolize values you have forgotten. We are strong and the future is ours.”

In Putinist propaganda, the European Union is a laughable weakling. The real players are Russia and the United States; Europe is either America’s lackey or dependent on Russian gas. It not only lacks a telephone number, as Henry Kissinger famously put it, it is

a decadent society

doomed to perish by ultra-liberal excess. The EU lacks the passion of Eurasia. And those who have passion have the future. The expression that Eurasian propaganda has coined for Western European decay is unpleasant. You can hear the nasty slant in Moscow and Kyiv, Sofia and Budapest: “Euro-gay.”

That rings in the ears of people like Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and Nigel Farage in the UK. They also think the EU an unnecessary weakling – and want to abolish it. They also talk about values lost and national pride rediscovered. And they often find an excuse for Putin’s deeds.

We should probably exclude Wilders from this list. The reason is the terminated flight of the Malaysian MH17. The shooting down of the plane set the Western public opinion, especially

not finished and the counter-arguments about this case have been abundant too (the plane was followed by Ukrainian fight-ers, it was shot down by Ukrainians, it was mistaken for Putin’s plane, it was replaced by the other Malaysian Boeing, etc.) the Western TV viewers saw a different picture: dragging out of the investigation, robbing dead bodies, arrogant telephone record-ings. Some analysts say that this was the moment when Vladimir Putin somewhat lost his “soft power” of a straightfor-ward leader in the West.

But still…

In the Western community, startling prevails over anger for now. Probably political scientist Ivan Krastev is right that his-torical analogies play a big role. According to him they work by the logic of coincidence.

The war in Ukraine coincides with the one hundredth anniver-sary of the First World War. A coup, a territorial dispute, a few hotheads – and you have Europe in flames, tens of millions of victims and another, even more terrible war on top of that. The best history book on the topic was written by Austrian Christopher Clark and is titled

“Sleepwalkers”.

With a mountain of facts Clark shows that the then leaders really acted like sleepwalkers: they knew the actions of the others but they could not interpret them and foresee the con-sequences. They walked blindly – and clashed in the end.

Armed with that image, the Western decision-makers cannot but think twice. What if we make the mistake of 1914? What if we act too hastily? Krastev recalls that the peaceful revolutions of 1989 coincided with a much more suitable anniversary: 200 years since the Great French Revolution. In the light of it one cannot but back up the fight for justice and freedom in the East.

Indeed I would not like to be in Obama’s place today, nor in Angela Merkel’s. On the one side you see Ukrainians who gave their first victims on the Maidan under the European azure flag with stars. On the other one you see Putin who knows which lines the Western leaders would not cross – and challenges them there.

Or probably he does not have a way out either? The long-term forecasts about the Russian economy are not good. The ruble is falling. The weakness of the hydrocarbons-based policy has hit the very transit of hydrocarbons – and that was seen in Russia’s not-so-perfect agreement with China. Tomorrow Moscow may revolt again on a Maidan of its own – and the only way out is to drag out the Ukrainian issue endlessly. Vladimir Putin is already talking about New Russia and the state system of Ukraine; in other words, the separatists in Donbas can be easy about their rear as long as Putin is not about his.

I am very afraid of situations in which neither side has a good move. That is how big mistakes happen. And you probably have to be Kasparov – the former chess champion – to take it

19p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

a m c h a m e v e n t s

Bulgaria urgently needs to revise the outdated Law on Normative Acts that was passed some 40 years ago and to consider regulatory mechanisms on the lobbying as soon as possible, said Hristo Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice at the opening of the forum entitled Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) for Better Governance held at Hilton Sofia on September 10th, 2014. In the words of the minister the lost legitimacy of Bulgaria’s institutions led to the protests, political crisis, and in the end to the upcoming early elections.

The conference gathered together repre-sentatives of political parties in Bulgaria, diplomats, foreign experts on RIA, and businesses. Impact assessment, rule of law, predictability and transparency of the environment were key topics during the forum.

Political consensus was not reached on how to perform the impact assessment in Bulgaria, which will be the regulatory body that should control the process and how it

Socialist Party, Rumiana Bachvarova of GERB, Lutvi Mestan, Movement of Rights and Freedom (MRF), and Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria for Citizens Movement conferred on the topics.

within the Council of Ministers to revise the laws and to consult which of them are good and which need improvement. In this way there will be no need for many amendments of the laws as is the current practice. Kuneva advised to have not

Politicians, Diplomats and Experts Discuss New Mechanisms for Better Regulatory Impact Assessment

Close to 200 participants from government, business and media attended the forum.

Tsvetan Simeonov, BCCI, Marcie B. Ries, U.S. Ambassador in Bulgaria and Hoyt Yee, Deputy Assistant

Secretary, U.S. Department of State.

a m c h a m e v e n t s

20

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

but for four years. She insisted on self-regulation that is proved to be an efficient tool, without the need to include the Parliament.

Rumiana Bachvarovaof GERB com-mented that Bulgaria has good practices on IA on which our country can rely as for example the Environment IA. It is also very important to prepare the administra-tive capacity, said Bachvarova.

MRF leader Lutvi Mestan identified the problem with the mechanisms to achieve IA objectives. In his view the IA body should not be in the hands of the Parliament but transferred to the NGO sector in order to guarantee a non-biased control and the citizens’ control.

On the contrary, BSP leader Mihail Mihov said the IA unit should not be in the NGO sector. This activity must stay within the state obligations. There is a Law on Normative Acts adopted 40 years ago. The problem is that it is not carefully read and respected. There are no preliminary reports on the drafted laws as it is stipu-lated in the Act.

The rule of law is the path to the prosper-ity of the Bulgarian society in the words of Bruce Berton, the new Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S Embassy in Bulgaria. He acknowledged the enormous trade potential of our country. At the same time a lot of U.S companies face legislative hindrances to realize their projects that in the end lead to corruptive practices.

Johnathan Allen, U.K. Ambassador in Bulgaria admitted that Bulgaria already has a lot of the tools to make a success-ful regulatory assessment for transparent governance. All of the political parties have to comply with the rule of law.

U.K. Best Practices were elaborated by Vera Asenova, EU/Economic Attaché, British Embassy in Sofia. In her words the guiding principle is that the regulation should not put costs on business and citizens unless a strong case has been made. The Government adopted a “One-In, One-Out” “One in, Two Out” approach to overall costs of regulation – for every £1 increase in costs to business - £2 have to be cut. As a result since 2011 £ 1.5 trillion of net costs decreased. There

is an evidence-based policy: ministers have the burden of proof why regulation should stay or go. The developments in the field are guided by the understanding that the public consultation informsac-countable and transparent laws. Public consultation is a way to create and check data and a designated public website lets business and consumers have their say on burdensome regulations.

Ms Asenova commented that the Bulgarian administration is doing the right steps to start implementing IA by issuing the themed handbook. The advice is there is no need to spend too much time investigating foreign experience and it is not efficient to change the laws too often.

U.S. Best Practices on RIA were pre-sented by Alex Hunt, Branch Chief Information Policy, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Office of Management Budget. He emphasized the importance of political support and engagement of the public. Regulatory Transparency and Participation in the U.S.has its foundation in the

From left: Evgeni Evgeniev, World Bank, Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria for

Citizens Movement, Lutvi Mestan, Movement of Rights and Freedom (MRF),

Rumiana Bachvarova of GERB, and Mihail Mikov, BSP. MRF leader Lutvi Mestan proposes outsourcing of RIA to the NGO sector.

From left: Bruce Berton, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S Embassy in

Bulgaria, Johnathan Allen, U.K. Ambassador in Bulgaria, Tsvetan Simeonov, AmCham leadership presents the AmCham White paper to Mihail Mikov,

21p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

a m c h a m e v e n t s

Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA).

The APA requires that agencies go through a notice and comment process open to all members of the affected pub-lic, both U.S. and foreign. The federal register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and organizations. In the words of Mr. Hunt RIA is a decision

making tool as it informs senior leaders and public about the law effects.

Lorenzo Allio, Consultant to Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development made an overview of international good practices and presented graphics of the adoption of RIA in OECD countries as from 1974 to 2012. Learning from good practices shows the importance of the following factors: political commitment

and endorsement, mix centralised / de-centralised responsibilities, target and prioritise RIA efforts, carry out sound analyses, multiple quality control mecha-nism, consultation / publication, training, nurture the interface with stakeholders.

Views on the main issues in Bulgaria for IA were elaborated by Tony Dimov, Chairman of the Center for Regulatory Impact Assessment in Bulgaria, Zhana Velichkova, Chairman of the Bulgarian Soft Drink Association and Milen Raikov, Executive Director Tax, Law Leader, EY Bulgaria. The social, economical and legal aspects of IA in our country include the existence of vulnerable social groups; need for legal security and lack of predict-ability. The process of IA is hindered by political obstacles, lack of administrative capacity and intercultural differences.

The conference was a team effort orga-nized and financed by AmCham Bulgaria, U.S. Embassy, Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and kindly sup-ported by the U.K. Embassy in Bulgaria, Enterprise Europe Network, the European Commission and AES Bulgaria. �

From left: Ryan Barnes, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of

Commerce, Alex Hunt, Branch Chief Information Policy, Office of Information

and Regulatory Affairs, U.S. Office of Management Budget, Lorenzo Allio,

Consultant to Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development

Peter Lithgow, AmCham president meets with Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria for

Citizens Movement.

Rumiana Bachvarova of GERB meets with Bruce Berton, the new Deputy Chief

From left: Krasen Stanchev, Chairman of the Institute for Market Economics,

Zhana Velichkova, Chairman of the Bulgarian Soft Drink Association, Tony

Dimov, Chairman of the Center for Regulatory Impact Assessment in Bulgaria,

Alex Hunt, U.S. Office of Management Budget, and Ryan Barnes, U.S. Department of Commerce, discuss

regulatory impact assessment with AmCham membership

a m c h a m e v e n t s

22

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

- Which sectors on the US and on the EU side will experi-ence the most growth as a direct result from the TTIP agreement? What will be the potential impact of TTIP on SEE countries in terms of trade growth?

- All sectors will experience growth as a result of TTIP. TTIP is about eliminating tariffs on trade and tackling costly non-tariff barriers that impede the flow of goods, including agricultural goods. This will affect all sectors in the economy and reduce the cost of doing business for everyone involved on both sides of the Atlantic. It is also about obtaining improved market access on trade in services and significantly reducing the cost of differences in regulations and standards by promoting greater compatibility, transparency, and cooperation.

In terms of TTIP impact on Southeast Europe, I think it will be significant. As the European economy recovers, this region will grow faster than the others, which will open up additional opportunities. U.S. companies are looking for growth markets and this region’s strategic location, low costs of doing busi-ness, and educated human resources give it a competitive advantage.

- How Bulgaria can boost its competitiveness among other Southeast European markets to attract more US investments?

- The main challenge for bilateral trade relations is the unpre-dictability of the market place. U.S. companies, or any com-pany for that matter, need to trust that contracts will be respected, that regulations won’t be changed overnight, that laws won’t be amended without consulting those directly affected, or without proper assessments to determine the impact of changes in the laws. Predictability is priceless and governments need to work with business to create an environ-ment that attracts more investors.

If a country wants to promote investment, it needs predictabil-ity, transparency, and respect for the rule of law. Every country is going to have challenges – the difference will be how the government decides to solve the challenges it has. Every com-pany is looking to mitigate risk. If companies know the govern-ment strategy and have been involved in the solution, a coun-try will be more likely to attract investment.

- On the EU level there is an ongoing talk about the energy independence and security of Europe. What would be the ways to gain more independence according to you? Establishment of a common EU energy union or research/

- Let me say a few words about energy in this region. I believe in the value of freedom and competition. Freedom for countries to choose their partners, allies, and friends; and economic competition to ensure the benefits of development are widely shared. When it comes to energy, diversity is good. For energy consumers like Bulgaria and Europe, diver-sity means multiple types of energy as well as multiple sup-pliers and multiple supply routes. That means increased security of energy supply, as well as competition for their markets, resulting in lower prices. Of course, I am advocating

Diversity for Bulgaria and Europe Means Multiple Types of Energy, Multiple Suppliers and Multiple Supply RoutesSays Ken Hyatt, Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade U.S. Department

of Commerce International Trade Administration

By Irina Bacheva

Kenneth E. Hyatt serves as Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade U.S. Department of Commerce. In this capacity, he leads the International Trade Administration (ITA), which participates in the development of U.S. trade policy; identifies and resolves market access and compli-ance issues; promotes American competitiveness and the strength of U.S. companies in the global economy; adminis-ters U.S. trade laws; and undertakes a range of trade pro-motion and trade advocacy efforts.

Prior to joining the Commerce Department in May 2010, Mr. Hyatt was a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of a consult-ing firm, CMPartners, where he served as an advisor to private and public sector organizations engaged in signifi-cant negotiations, conflicts, change efforts, and alliances/relationships.

23p a g e

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

a m c h a m e v e n t s

Plant. This nuclear project can be transformational in terms of its potential to resolve Europe’s most urgent energy issues: reducing import dependence, and boosting sustainability and system stability.

- From US Department of Commerce perspective what are the challenges to bilateral trade relations with SEE coun-tries?

- The challenge in the U.S. is multi-fold. First of all, our compa-nies, especially our SMEs, have less experience with exporting to SEE countries than our competitors. Our market is the larg-est in the world and we have Mexico and Canada right next door. But the North American market is not enough. If we want to stay competitive in a global economy, we have to reach outside our borders and market our products and services worldwide.

Second, Southeast Europe is not very well known in the United States as an export destination. Our job, and the job of our Commercial Service, is to promote Southeast Europe as a destination for exports. Companies are now looking at these markets regionally and so are we. The Southeast Europe region is the size of Texas – let’s get the word out!

- How can organizations like AmCham be instrumental for better business environment?

- By committing to making pro-business reforms, Bulgaria would create the necessary conditions for start-ups and broad-en trade and investment opportunities that are more in tune with global markets. AmCham, and organizations like it, help Bulgaria create a better business environment by lobbying the government for pro-business reforms, rule of law and more predictability, and by raising awareness on topics of concern to companies doing business in the market.

Of particular concern to companies in recent months is the rushed passage of laws that affect both industry and consum-ers which have not been subject to sufficient public debate and consideration. To raise awareness on this issue, in September the U.S. Embassy and Department of Commerce are partner-ing with the AmCham to organize a workshop on a regulatory impact analysis. The event featured a speaker from the Office of Management and Budget, and highlighted for the Bulgarian Government the importance of analyzing the consequences of proposed legislation before measures are passed that poten-tially impose unnecessary costs on companies doing business in the market. �

Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena Bansko has been awarded once again as ‘Bulgaria’s Leading Spa Resort’ by World Travel Awards 2014. This year’s gala ceremony took place at the Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso in Athens, Greece in August. During the most eagerly antici-pated event in the European hospitality industry, Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena Bansko topped the ranking as the hotel with the most awards received in this category throughout the years.

This is the seventh trophy that the hotel has won in the aforementioned category out of the 11 given to date. Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena Bansko received its first award in 2005 and then consecu-tively in 2007, 2008 and 2009, as well as in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Globally recognized as the ultimate hall-mark of quality for 21 years, World Travel Awards is dedicated to acknowledging, rewarding and celebrating excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry. The programme is renowned as the most

ti i i th fi ld f t i d i

held on an annual basis.

The General Manager Athanassios Manos commented: “We are very much honoured to once again be awarded as ‘Bulgaria’s Leading Spa Resort’. We highly appreciate this recognition because it mirrors the guests’ genuine perception of our hotel. Moreover, it is an interna-tional recognition that further boosts Bansko’s profile not only as a ski but also

d ti ti Thi d ti

vates us to continue providing excep-tional luxury service to our valuable guests.”

Among the hotel’s worldwide achieve-ments is its inclusion in the listing of the Top Resort and Spa Destinations in the World compiled by the luxury lifestyle web-site topdreamer.com. The hotel comes in at 13th out of 24 internationally renowned spa hotels. Another international spa rec-ognition is the 2013 Spafinder Wellness 365�� Readers’ Choice Country Award for a ‘Favourite Spa in Bulgaria’, an award won for the fourth consecutive year. The hotel also recently received the Trip Advisor’s Certificate of Excellence for 2014 by achieving an exceptional rating of 4.5, and was featured in the 2014 Traveller’s Choice Awards in the category ‘Top 25 Luxury Hotels in Bulgaria’ coming first out of 25.

Kempinski Hotel Grand Arena Bansko is also included in the ongoing ranking for the World Ski Awards 2014 as a nomi-nee in the category ‘Bulgaria’s Best Ski H t l’

m e m b e r n e w s

Kempinski Bansko Is Bulgaria’s Leading Spa Resor t

24

A

mC

ham

B

ulg

aria

M

agazin

e S

eptem

ber 2014

m e m b e r n e w s

"The Funny Summer Reading" is a cam-paign in public benefit, initiated by the Bulgarian children portal Az-deteto.bg as part of Investor media group, and Sofia City Library. The initiative is being held for first time in 2011 and its main purpose is to promote children's reading by giving tangible results.

The active part of the campaign takes place during the summer students vaca-tion between Children's Day (June 1st) and the First day of school (September 15th). "The Funny Summer Reading" is a campaign with national coverage and together with the distribution of books, materials and information through a net-work of libraries and community centers each year a team of Az-deteto.bg per-sonally visits several Bulgarian cities by organizing cultural events on site with children together with representatives of municipalities and cultural figures.

Each city has selected ambassadors of "The Funny Summer Reading" who con-tinue to operate as missionaries of chil-dren's reading. So far, over 60 children writers, cultural activists and represen-tatives of regional educational inspec-torates and municipalities have adopted the title of "Ambassador of children's reading" and assumed the important task to spread this good cause. Since the launch of the campaign in 2011 so far, over 10 000 children took part, over 40 000 books were read. The visited cit-ies in Bulgaria are already 24. Thanks to "The Funny Summer Reading" every year the young readers become more and more, which is the main task of the campaign.

This year "The Funny Summer Reading" 2014 started with the National Round Table on the children’s reading on "The reading – a way to better literacy", which took place on May 13th in the children's department (American corner) of Sofia City Library. The event was attended by all key institutions and organizations: experts from the Ministry of Education and Science, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Center for monitoring and eval-uating the quality of school education to

Representatives of libraries, community centers and non-governmental organi-zations in the sector, writers, teachers and parents were together discussing how our society can make up for lost 20 years transition time; how to keep alive the interest of Bulgarian children to read. The general conclusion of the round table was that initiatives to pro-mote reading among children are held, but the concerned parties do not com-municate to each other and they shall unite efforts for better results.

The official start of the summer read-ing was given in Ruse on May 26th as the city won the prize "The most read-ing city". The team of Investor media group visited in person eight cities introducing to the young readers the nature of the campaign and the spe-cial electronic readers logbook where to indicate how many and which books they have read during the summer. The organizers made a special hap-pening for the children in each of the eight cities they passed through. The idea was to gather the children in every city together with their favorite authors and actors. Books and vouch-ers for the purchase of modern books were donated to local libraries. The tour in 2014 covered Rousse, Razgrad, Shoumen, Dobrich, Veliko Turnovo, Sofia, Vidin and Vratsa.

In the capital, the opening of "The Funny Summer Reading" was held at the book-

had the opportunity to meet with some of the national ambassadors of "The Funny Summer Reading" - Petya Kokudeva, Maggie Blagoeva, Marin Bodakov, Julia Spiridonova - Julka, etc.

In 2014 "The Funny Summer Reading" has a new element – for the first time a competition for children’s creative writ-ing was held on the topic "My favorite fictional character". The results of the competition and the winners will be announced at the closing event in September, just before the beginning of the new school year. In the children's jury included writers, ambassadors of the Reading as well Maria Dukovska – Editor-in-chief of the website Az-deteto.bg and the specialist in creative writing Dobrina Dobreva – Radio journalist.

In September the official closing cere-mony of the campaign will be held to announce the results of the reading popularization among children.

"The Funny Summer Reading" is held in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Sofia City Municipality, Sofia City Library, Bulgarian Library and Information Association, "Global librar-ies", UNICEF, “Teach for Bulgaria” foun-dation. This year the organizers con-tacted the Association "AGORA Platform" having a plan to develop closer cooper-ation in the next year due to the numer-ous community centers throughout the country and their active work for the

Over 10 000 children Take Par t in “The Funny Summer Reading”

www.edocument.bg

The leader in Information Management

software solutions

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

# Easy and instant access to all your valuable information

# Improved communication between the company’s departments

# Integration with 3rd party solutions (Smart Connect)

# Visibility of business processes, increased productivity