Seminar on entrepreneurship was held in Stara Zagora

On 15 April SZ REDA hosted the seminar "Opportunities for entrepreneurship in Stara Zagora" within the COALition project. The seminar was moderated by Dr. Rumyana Grozeva and the speakers were Levon Hampartzumyan - banker, financist, Ognyan Zlatev from the European Commission, Rositsa Raykova from the Investment, Energy Efficiency and Green Transition Department at Stara Zagora Municipality, Georgi Parvanov, Executive Director of CTeam, Assoc. Kosyo Stoychev from Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Maria Zhekova, Manager of ATE Plast Ltd, Dinko Dinev, Director of Information Technologies at eDynamix.

On 15 April SZREDA hosted the seminar "Opportunities for entrepreneurship in Stara Zagora" within the COALition project. During the seminar the important questions were raised about the state of entrepreneurship in Stara Zagora, in view of the trends, the workforce and the coming changes in the affected areas. Rositsa Raykova presented to the participants the concept of a business incubator to be implemented through a project funded with technical assistance from the European Commission, and fully tailored to the specific needs and realities of Stara Zagora. Funding under the Just Transition Fund is expected to enable the idea to be put into practice. Ognian Zlatev shared the experience of Croatia with the introduction of the euro with regard to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the challenges that this change brings.

Georgi Parvanov, Executive Director of CTeam, spoke about how businesses and entrepreneurs in Stara Zagora need to be proactive, follow trends and adapt to new realities in order to remain competitive and ensure sustainable development of the regional economy. The labour market is at a decisive crossroads - not only because of the rapid digitalization and the penetration of artificial intelligence, but also against the backdrop of green transformation. For traditional coal regions, which decades ago built their economies around fossil fuels, this moment is even more crucial. Stara Zagora faces serious challenges, but also promising opportunities.

Levon Khampartsumian gave his insight into the shortcomings of the entrepreneurial environment - an educated and skilled workforce, a positive attitude in society towards entrepreneurs, who in most cases are seen as exploiters, heavy administrative procedures. The main thing is also to have a predictable environment, because there are successful economies with high taxes, but also unsuccessful economies with low taxes. We need to be a successful economy, which means a predictable environment for doing business. When you can predict the things that happen in the environment - starting from organisation, labour relations, taxes, administrative procedures, controls and all these things - when they are well-functioning, predictable, doing business is a song. When they're not well organized and they're inefficient, they can be corrupt, the environment becomes unpleasant regardless of the factors, like low taxes, good climate and other factors that attract people.

In the last panel of the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kosyo Stoychev, Head of the Department of Regional and Political Geography at St. Kliment Ohridski", who is a partner of the COALition project, shared his professional path and experience from over 50 countries as an industrial entrepreneur and photovoltaic project creator, as well as his active work on regional and energy strategies.

Stara Zagora is the last place in Bulgaria where the country - with the help of the European Commission - wants to "push the button" and make a strategic change before the region hits the wall. This time, however, the transition is not left to its own devices, but a sustainable model for a new, learned and predictable future is sought.

Energy, he says, is the queen of the economy - its structure, efficiency and social footprint say everything about a region. Bulgaria is trying to build a new model - based on regional balances that integrate social, transport, production and energy systems. The region can become a model for a smart transition, where old energy systems are replaced not just with new ones, but with ones that bring higher value and allow for better incomes and social sustainability.

According to Stoychev, Bulgaria often does much more than other countries in the region, but does not know how to tell its stories - marketing the achievements is as important as the implementation itself. Understanding the structure of energy consumption is the basis for effective restructuring. Without it, investments will remain expensive, inefficient and economically unsustainable. In his words, if we do not know what, when and why we consume, we cannot build an efficient energy system, especially in the face of global dependence on external suppliers and infrastructures.