1. GENERAL INFO FOR THE SECTOR LEATHER, LEATHER GOODS AND SHOES Sector with traditions and good potential for future development That sector is one of the oldest in Bulgaria with long years traditions in production. Has production capacity and experienced high skilled workers and specialist, which fact is a good base for development. There are possibilities to increase external and internal markets. The stable macro-economic frame in the country during the last years, relatively low inflation, increase the volume of the production and flat increase of average working salary are proving that. Authors: Veneta Dimova, Veneta Hristova, Todor Bozveliev This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission

2. ANALYZIS OF THE MOST IMPORTANT STATISTISAL DATA CONCERNING THE BRANCH: According to the preliminary appropriated approach there have been collected, processed and analyzed data concerning following indicators: 1. Emploees in skins and hides production and articles from them. 2. Production of: 2.1. Leather and double faced. 2.2. Footwear. 2.3. Details for shoes. 2.4. Soles. 2.5. Leather and fur clothing. 2.6. Haberdashery. 3. Import. 3.1. Skins and hides in natural indicators. 3.2. Skins and hides in value. 3.3. Shoes in natural indicators, 3.4. Shoes in value. 4. Export 4.1. Skins and hides in natural indicators. 4.2. Skins and hides in value. 4.3. Shoes in natural indicators, 4.4. Shoes in value. 5. Internal market (wholesales). 6. Investments in long term material assets.

3. 1. People working in leather processing and leather goods producing companies:х. CONCLUSIONS: 1. If compare the employment to that one in the very beginning of the transition period when the total number of employees was about 34 thousand people, at the end of the last year we could see shrinkage of the employment with about 60%. 2. Independently of bad economical situation the number of employees during the surveyed period is relatively stable – the full decrease is only 6%. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission

4. 2. Production of: 2.1. Leather and double faced. 2.2. Footwear. 2.3. Details for shoes. 2.4. Soles. 2.5. Leather and fur clothing. 2.6. Haberdashery. 2.1. CONCLUSIONS: 1. Permanetly decreases the volume of production. 2. Effectivness of one employee therefore decreases too. 3. The capacity is used under 50% 4. If this trend is kept that means a chain of bancruptcis in the branch.

5. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission ASSORTIMENT GROUPMEASURE UNIT 200120022003 MEN’SThousand units10069161208 DAMES’Thousand units8028051770 CHILDRENS’Thousand units1511121504 SPORTS’Thousand units959453406 OTHERSThousand units129420912821 CONCLISIONS: 1. The data shows significant increase, but that is somehow tricky because the real increase concerns only the group of home shoes. 2. More serious is the increase of women’s shoes but that group is concerned from the mass import from China and Turkey.

6. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 2.3. & 2.4 CONCLISIONS: 1. In the production of details for shoes a decrease of 10 times in the volume between the 1 st and 2 nd year of analysis is shown, followed by the partial restitution in the 3 rd year of analysis. In spite of all the decrease of more than 2 times is shown for the analyzed period. 2. In regards to the production of the soles in spite of the fluctuation a process of growth is observed.

7. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 2.5. CONCLUSIONS: 1.Started trend of increase but and for that group is valide the problem with mass import from China and Turkey in majority unreglamented.

8. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 2.6. CONCLUSIONS: 1. There is a considerable increase in the haberdashery articles production (in kinds) - for the analyzed period is above 2 times.

9. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 3. Import. 3.1. Skins and hides in natural indicators. 3.2. Skins and hides in value. 3.3. Shoes in natural indicators. 3.4. Shoes in value. 3.1. Type of skins or hides Measure unit200120022003 Buffalos’,cows’ etc.Thsnds sq. dm108 618 77 05447 467 Sheep’s and goats’Thsnds sq. dm9 73713 1344 232 Swine’sThsnds sq. dm94 49641 57360 171

10. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission CONCLUSIONS: 1. A considerable decrease in the buffalos’, cows’, etc. in production of skins, is observed. 2. For the sheep’s’ and goats’ skins production there are significant fluctuations with a negative meaning. 3. In case of swine’s skins also are variations in the production, but they are not so clearly expressed as in the buffalos’ and cows’ skins. 4. As a whole the import for the period is relatively stable (with weak decrease)

11. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission CONCLUSIONS: 1. A considerable fluctuation in the value of the imported skins is shown. If we estimate skins’ import per prearranged skin unit for the period is shown an increase from 11.57 Euro to 14.85 Euro (28%), which means a trend to import more expensive skins. 2. Significant changes in the importing countries to BG are not shown – mostly the skins are imported from Italy, Turkey and Greece. Some sporadically imports are observed from Pakistan, Poland, Romania, India, Russia, etc.

12. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission THE TEN STATES WITH THE BIGGEST SHARE OF IMPORT IN EURO № 2001200220032004 1Italy 2FranceTurkeyNetherlandsTurkey 3 Greece 4SpainNetherlandsGermanyIndonesia 5NetherlandsFranceIndonesiaFrance 6Germany FranceGermany 7GreeceSpain Netherlands 8SloveniaRomaniaTirkeySpain 9RomaniaRussianRomaniaPakistan 10RussianBulgaria f.z.IndiaPoland

13. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission

14. THE TEN STATES WITH THE BIGGEST SHARE IN IMPORT OF FOOTWEAR №2001200220032004 1TurkeyItaly 2 TurkeyChina 3 Turkey 4Greece 5France Austria 6Germany SlovakiaFrance 7RomaniaSpainHungarySpain 8Poland FranceHungary 9SpainGreat BritainSpainVietnam 10PortugalRomaniaVietnamHong Kong CONCLUSIONS: 1. The import of footwear in tons is increase with 56% as such increase has in the value – 41%. A unit of ton imported footwear varies slightly, which indicates import of cheaper footwear. 2. Significant changes in the importing countries to BG are not shown – typically they are Turkey, Italy and China.

15. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 4. Export 4.1. Skins and hides in natural indicators. 4.2. Skins and hides in value. 4.3. Shoes in natural indicators. 4.4. Shoes in value. 4.1.

16. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission CONCLUSIONS: 1. The skins’ export in tons stays stable with a trend to increase (about 20%), in contrast to the export in euro where the decrease is twice bigger. It means that the price of a prearranged skin export unit is becomes smaller.

17. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission CONCLUSIONS: 1. The export of footwear in tons stays stable with a trend to increase. 2. The export in value also shows increase. 3. The comparison between these indexes (export in tons and euro) indicates slight decrease of about 5 %.

18. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 5. Internal market sales (wholesales). CONCLUSIONS: 1. A significant growth in the selling of the leather and fur clothing in the internal market is shown – 2,5 times. 2. Increase is indicated also in the footwear selling – 2,61 times.

19. This workshop is organized with financial support of the European Commission’s Program PHARE,Subprogram BSP2,Project PERFECTLINK,Contract № 2002-0314 – 581.The views expressed herein are those of the organizers and authors and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Commission 6. Investments in long term material assets. Investments in long- term assetsMillion BGN 200120022003 For Bulgaria TotalMillion BGN 6694,307220,508503,10 For the branch Million BGN 16,3014,5011,50 Share%0,240,200,14 CONCLUSIONS: Until the investment in long term assets in Bulgaria marks increase, in the leather sector is recor ded decrease of 40%. The total long term assets’ share of the sector also decreases with 0,10.