Development and Competitive Abilities of the Food Processing Industry at European Market

Tz. KOVACHEVA

Abstract: The problem of the competitiveness of the Bulgarian food industry becomes more significant with our accession to the EC and the further liberalization and globalization of trade. The integration of the Bulgarian domestic market of foods, beverages and tobacco to the European one, created a more competitive environment for our producers not only at the outer, but at the national market as well. In these conditions the prospects of development of the Bulgarian food industry are in a direct relation and dependence not only of the possibilities of expansion of theouter markets, but of the preservation of its position at the national market. The investigation aims to make an assessment of the place, the temps of development and the competitive abilities of the Bulgarian food industry at the United European market during the first years of full membership in the EC. The competitiveness is a complex economic category, determined by lot of factors and being multidimensional. The study is limited to measuring and comparing of indexes, featuring the branch efficiency of the production and the realization as resources prices; productivity; expenses and incomes; size and efficiency of the investment costs. The achieved results of the Bulgarian food industry are evaluated, according the accepted indexes for the average level EC – 27 and for the particular country members. Indexes for the “DA” level are utilized of the unified EC nomenclature of the economic activities and according the European methodology of the Structure Business Statistics (SBS), which makes them methodologically compatible with other European member countries data. The analysis is based on statistical data and analytical indexes for the period 2000 – 2008. Data sources are NSI and Eurostat. The results of the study show that the food industry is a basic branch of the Bulgarian industry, with broad competitive advantages concerning the utilized production factors. The branch demonstrates high economic activity during the first two years after Bulgaria’s accession to the EC. The production and sales at the home and European market grow, accompanied with a considerable increase of the labor productivity, which proves the successful integration and good competitive abilities of the Bulgarian food industry to the European market. The Bulgarian food industry has an insignificant share in the European food industry, smaller in size factories, compared to the average European Community ones and with the smallest labor productivity. Its comparative advantages at the European market are due to the low labor costs per unit of production before all and respectively to the higher production and sales efficiency. In the conditions of a united labor market, this factor does not bring advantages in a long term aspect. The branch lags in regard to the size and efficiency of investments, which leads to a delay of the processes of mechanization and automation of the labor activities, as well as the increase of the labor productivity.

Keywords: competitive abilities; European market; food industry

Date published: 2024-09-04