1. Sofia real estate market – the need for a strategic FDI city positioning
June 2019

2. Historical CEE investment volumes EUR bn, annual/ quarterly
13.8
13.1 Q4 Q3 Q2 Q1

3. Historical Bulgaria investment volumes EUR mln, annual

4. Investment market Q1 2019

5. Office market Q1 2019

6. Retail market Q1 2019

7. Industrial market Q1 2019

8. The need of smart FDI city positioning
TOP 10 major European cities of the future 2018/19 – cost effectiveness
Tbilisi, Georgia
Sofia, Bulgaria
Kiev, Ukraine
Minsk, Belarus
Bucharest, Romania
Riga, Latvia
Zagreb, Croatia
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Warsaw, Poland
Prague, Czech Republic
Source: FDI intelligence.com

9. Sofia - FDI
At the end of 2016, the cumulative FDI in Sofia was 12.2 billion EUR ( ). This was 52% of the FDI to Bulgaria.
Source: NSI

10. FDI in Sofia by sector (2000-2015)
Source: NSI

11. Priority industries in Sofia
Fintech
Outsourcing and Shared Service Centers
Creative industries
(Gaming, Interactive leisure, Advertising, Architecture, Design, Cinema industry)
Tourism
Manufacturing
Source: Sofia Business Guide 2019

12. City FDI promotion strategy of the year*
City FDI strategy for the year
City's strengths and weaknesses which shaped the formation of the FDI strategy
How was the strategy implemented?
How successful was the strategy? - KPIs
* Process developed by Emerging Europe for their city FDI strategy award 2019

13. A case study– Vilnius Emerging Europe Awards 2019 (23 countries)
Key sectors primed for investment:
FinTech
IT (Game development, Cybersecurity and Data Centres)
Biotechnology
Electronics and optics
Lithuanian government provides R&D grants used to
reimburse costs for R&D operations, R&D infrastructure
and innovation change management.
Forward-thinking regulations:
Fastest E-money or payment license
Sandbox regime for FinTech start-ups and a Lite bank license.

14. A case study – Vilnius Emerging Europe Awards 2019 (23 countries)
Integration of foreign talent:
To attract and retain investors, Go Vilnius implement three strands of activities:
Direct support for international companies
Regular contact with investors
Industry-specific approach in aftercare initiatives
The result:
Vilnius labor force working for foreign investors is increasing every year
Amounted to a third of the entire Vilnius labor force in 2018
Foreign investors also take the role of participants and creators of innovations
Blockchain Centre Vilnius, opened in 2018, is the first blockchain technology center in Europe
According to Invest Lithuania and FDI Markets, in 2018 Vilnius Municipality attracted:
40 projects in total, accounting for 3,214 new jobs and 76.7 million euro in Capex

15. Sofia – a city with future potential?
Global cities index: current performance
Global cities outlook: future potential
27 metrics across 5 dimensions
Rank and score determined by totaling the weighted averages
13 metrics across 4 dimensions
Rank and score determined by averaging the rate of change across each metric using the past 5-years data, then projecting out to 2029
Source: A.T. Kearney 2019 Global cities report

16. Thank you!