Pazardjik region major city – Pazardjik

The Pazardjik region is situated in the South Central Region covering an area of 4458 км2, representing 4% of the total territory of the country. In administrative aspect the region comprises 11 self-governing municipalities which in turn encompass 117 habitation sites, 99 of them headed by a mayor. Pazardjik was initially established as natural commercial centre in the region over 500 years ago. Favourable climatic conditions and excellent natural resources have destined the development of the town during all these years such that today Pazardjik is the centre of one of the most prosperous municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria.

The Pazardjik municipality is situated in the Southern Bulgaria, in the central parts of the Upper Thracial valley and north of the Rhodope mountains, along the river Maritsa.

In administrative aspect, the Pazardjik municipality comprises 1 major city, Pazardjik and 31 villages.

• Part of the Euro-Asia transport corridor connecting Western Europe to the Near East and mid Asia along the London-Kalkuta route.
• “Trakia” International motorway constituting part of the E-80 European route and connecting the municipality to Western Europe and Istanbul.
• Transport corridor No.8 connecting the Black sea and the Adriatic sea.
• The main southern international railroad CE70 connecting Central Europe to Asia and providing access to Black sea ports Burgass and Varna.

Distances:

• Sofia - 110 кm
• Varna - 430 кm
• Plovdiv - 36 кm.
• Burgass - 310 кm
• Thessaloniki - 320 кm.
• Istanbul - 450 кm.

A business incubator is envisaged to be set up in Pazardjik with the financial assisstance of the EU’s Phare programme. The municipality council of Pazardjik has offered rent-free for the purpose a municipality-owned built-up site of over 2000 м2. The project will support the small and medium-sized enterprises and will serve as the basis for implementing modern technologies and know-how in various production industry sectors.

A project for the establishment of a new industrial park has been developed with the support of partners from the municipality of West Bend, Wisconsin, USA . A site of 170 decres was allocated for the purpose by the Pazardjik municipality to build up the necessary infrastructure and offer for sale land plots for building up production premises.

The Pazardjik municipality is the first to have developed a projcet for a municipal guarantee fund to be used to warrant loans for the the small and medium sized enterprises in the region. Activities in this project are presently directed at attracting the support of foreign investors and international donor institutions to assisst the structuring of the fund. Following its successful start up the project will eventually be disseminated within the entire region and the country.

A wholesale site for agricultural products was set up to assisst the process of rebirth of agriculture and especially vegetable growing and through the funding of the SAPARD programme of the EU it is expected to grow into the largest agricultural wholesale site in the country.

Operating in the territory of the Pazardjik region are branches of the major Bulgarian and several international banks. 19 financial institutions have their representative branches here, such as Reifasen bank, Bulbank Plc., DSK bank, UBB, etc.

Available free sites and buildings offered for sale or to let for production purposes or agriculture:

• Agricultural land – around 16000 decres
• Unoccupied buildings around 300 decres
• Unoccupied buildnings in the Pazardjik municipality only is as follows:

1. 1.Planned land plot of 1610 sq.m; a three-storey administrative building with ground floor of 523 sq.m. total built-up area; a single storey building comprising garages and laboratory rooms of 144 sq.m. total built-up area.
2. 2.A complex of intervened buildings of various height with encompassed internal gardens comprising: a two-storey flat-roof building built up on 319 sq.m.
3. 3.A five-storey single-panel block of flats built up on 551 sq.m. and of total built-up area of 2763 sq.m. The block was built in 1981 г. and is provided with lift facilities, waste discharge duct and local heating facilities.
4. 4.A land plot area of 56 decres in the industrial estate area of the town of Pazardjik and a total built-up area of 32083 sq.m.

Provided underneath are some extracts from the Regional economic development strategy of the region. 56,07% of the region’s territory is occupied by forrest land and 36% is agricultural land.

General information

Number of population of the region: 315 225 people

Population density is 72,3 people per sq. km.

Population age structure

Economic indicators

Average renumeration per sector, expressed annually:

Unemployment

24.7% for the region (end of 2001) and for the Pazardjik municipality - 31 thousand people ( 17,3 % )

Major natural resources

Major natural resources of the region are forrests, waters and mineral springs. Therefore, some of the most highly developed industrial activities are timber and wood processing, furniture manufacturing, irrigative farming and mineral water spa centres.

The largest copper ore deposits are found in the region and these are extracted in several mines.

The cost of agricultural land (per 1000 sq.m.)
depends on the land grade and its location and varies between 0.25 Leva to 1 Lev per sq.m.

The cost of building site plot areas in the town of Pazardjik (per 1 sq. m)
also depends on the site distance from the town centre and varies between 40 and 65 Leva per 1 sq.m.

Office rental cost per month (per 1 sw.m)
depends on the location and level of laxurity and varies between 2 Leva and 10 Leva.

The cost of purchasing ready-made buildings (per 1 sq.m.)
epends on the type of building (panel, monolythic, brick) and the location, number of floors, etc. and varies between 200 and 480 Leva.

Industrail sectors
The sectoral structure of economy in the Pazardjik municipality shows a wide spectrum of sectors offering exceptional development and profit opportunities. The geographic location of the region and and existing business infrastructure are an excellent prerequisite for the development of a number of industrial and agricultural activities. The largest share is occupied by industry. Its main sectors are the light industry (tailor, furniture manufacture), food industry and machine engineering. The largest development potential in the agricultural sector belongs to vegetable growing, orchards and vineyards. These are tranditional occupations for which very good quality and fertile agricultural land is available. Moreover, ideal conditions exist for developing organic farming due to low utilization of fertilizers.

Sectoral structure of economy

The agricultural sector and trade represent 50,4% of the region’s economy. Main branches are vegetable growing, orchard growing, vine growing and trade in agricultural products. The food industry occupies a major share in the structure of the region’s economy represented by fruit and vegetable processing companies, wine production and tobacco processing. The Pazardjik municipality is among leading manufacturers of canned fruit and vegetables of unique taste, well-known throughout the world. The sector offers unlimited opportunities for investment and there has been particular interest by major international companies for the production of pepper powder, fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables (cherries, morrello-cherries, pears, wild fruits, tomatoes, and cucumbers), plantations for orchard saplings and establishment of new processor plants. One of the main advantages of agriculture in the Pazardjik municipality compared to other regions in the country is the available water resource for irrigation and a very well established network of irrigation canals. The easy access to underground water resources throughout the area occupied by the municipality is a prerequisite for efficient irrigation activities even in the driest seasons.

Major water sources supplying water for irrigation in the Pazardjik municipality are:

• The “Topolnitsa” irrigation dam lake of 137 mln.cu. l. water capacity and the complex irrigation and power generation dam lakes of “Batak” and “Belmeken” of 310 mln.cu.l. and 144 mln.cu.l. capacity, respectively.
• Four pump stations are currently operational on the territory of the municipality of 2.7 cu.l per second capacity each.
• Irrigation canals of total length of 100 km and 15 cu.l/sec to 18 cu.l/sec flow capacity run across the municipality.
• Irrigation land area is 288702 dca (as of 31/12/1999) of which 120384 dca are currently being used.

Industry is the second largest sector of the region’s economy. Major branches indicating some growth and for which foreigh investors have expressed interest are machine engineering, tailoring, furniture and food industries. The number of companies in these industrial brunches, which have implemented Quality Management Systems for their production is constantly increasing. These industrial branches offer excellent investment opportunities thanks to the highly qualified work force currently available and offered free land area for building new manufacturing facilities.

Industrial sector structure

Number of foreign investors in the municipality and major joint venture companies (in various sectors)

• Ttrade sector – BILLA, SHELL, ОМV, Lukoil
• Agricultural sector – Belquality
• Industry – Realco, FEDON

• AC sub stations 5
• Switchgear AC transformers 514
• Cp H distribution networks 490 кm.
• HH distribution networks 738 кm.

Four water power generation stations have been built up in the region 221,8 MegaWatt total power capacity.

The distrubution network is designed to provide electricity to 220V and 380V/ 50Hz consumers.

One advantage that investors are going to benefit from in establishing and initiating new production activities is the opportunity of production gasification. The Pazardjik municipality is one of the shareholders of the gas supply company “Hebrosgas” Plc. holding 20% of the capital share. The gas supply mains length on the territory of the municipality is around 45 km, 10 km of them in the industrial estate area of the town.

The natural gas source is the republican main gas supply pipeline. 71 out of totally 102 municipal and administrative buildings have been completely gasified by the present moment and diversion gas pipework has been made available to another 93 of them.

Additionally, 16 companies from the industrial sector have been completely gasified.

Private homes gasification has started in 2001 and 80 homes have already been gas supplied and another 50 are at design development stage.

Culture

The region of Pazardjik has had long traditions in the cultural sphere all well-kept and maintained in a well-established network of museums. Rich and diversified are the historical museum exhibitions in Pazardjik, Panagyurishte, Batak, Velingrad, Bratzigovo and the archeological museum in Septemvri. An etnographic exhibition has been arranged in the rennaissance atmosphere of the house of Nikolaki Hristovich in Pazardjik. The houses-museums of the rennaissance writer and social activist Konstantin Velichkov and the rennaissance artist and revolutionary Stanislav Dospevski in Pazardjik bring us closer to the spirit of these famous Bulgarians. The museums of Rajna Knyaginya and the home museum of Alexander Stambolyiski are also on the territory of the Pazardjik region.

A drama theatre, a regional puppet theatre, an operreta theatre, a symphony orchestra, a regional library “N.Furnadjiev”, an art gallery “Stanislav Dospevski” and many other cultural institutions are available in the region.

Famous artists and musicians of national and European significance find the region of Pazardjik as their place of creative work – Georgi Gerasimov, Dimiter Kazakov-Neron, Velitchko Minekov, Ivan Spasov and many others.

Adding to the cultural life of the region is the “Pazardjik” folk song and dance ensemble and several children and junior and youth folk and various other formations, which became famous not only in Bulgaria but also abroad.

National significance cultural events are organised and held annually such as the Winter musical evenings “Prof. Ivan Spasov”, the Furnadjiev literature days, the festival of authentic folklore in the Chepino area “In the outskirts of Chepino”, the rose festival in Strelcha and traditional municipal festivities are also organised in each municipality on a particular day of the year. 15 cinema halls and over 50 community centres are available in the region.

Media – press and electronic

Sport

ВWell-developed and maintained sport facilities are available in the region. Traditional sports are: volleyball, football, tennis, judo, cross-country skiing, etc.

The ski-drugs available in the Rhodopes mountains in close vicinity to the artificial dam lakes “ Batak”, “ Belmeken” are prerequisites for the development of all season and recreational and tourists activities. Famous mountain resorts are : Yundola, Tzigov Chark, St Konstantin and Helena, Atoluka. There are huge potential for the development of village and eco tourism is present in the region.