In 2012 in the automotive sector in Bulgaria there were 30 companies and 9,000 people employed, the turnover was about half a billion euro (less than 1% of GDP). Now (2020) there are more than 250 companies, more than 60,000 people employed, with a turnover of EUR 6.5 billion (more than 10 per cent of GDP). And this is just the beginning.
There is no automotive component that is not manufactured in Bulgaria. The components are of different types of metal aggregates, aluminium, plastic ... But Bulgaria's greatest successes and potential are, on the one hand, electronic components (a legacy from communist times), and software.
More than half of the intrinsic value of a modern car is due to the software and electronics in it, which means a great opportunity for Bulgaria because it can confirm itself as a producer of the most expensive and most profitable car articles of the future. The Government's investment agency reported that there are currently three teams of large, world-renowned German companies touring Bulgaria and looking for locations for their operations. One of the three is selecting a site for the production of electric car components.
The intertwining of the automotive industry and the software industry is a fact of great social-economic synergy, considering that those employed in these sectors are always representatives of the better-educated and more professionalised workforce and that the salaries in the sector are around 3-4 times the national average (of about 1,000 leva equivalent to about EUR 500). Moreover, many young people who in the past, after having obtained their qualifying degrees abroad, found no satisfactory fulfilment at home, can now truly compete for respectable positions and careers, with nothing to envy their German or French peers and colleagues.