NATIONAL REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA FOR THE PERIOD 2005-2015

Съдържание
	Introduction
	Comparative analysis of the socio-economic development of the planning regions
	Population and demographic situation
	Economic development and cohesion
	Social development and cohesion
	Factors determining growth rates, employment and competitive capacity
	Environment
	Territorial development and cohesion
	Assessment of the capacity for utilization of funds allocated under the eu structure funds and cohesion fund at local and regional level
	Major conclusions
	SWOT analysis
	Concept for the national territory development
	Development of the settlement network and urban structure in the long-term plan
	Development of the infrastructure corridors
	Improvement of the environment situation of areas with cumultive environmental problems
	Vision, goals and priorities of regional development
	Vision
	Strategic goals
	Regional development priorities
	Implementation of NRDS
	Institutional organizations for the implementation of NSRD
	Economic and financial mechanisms for the assistance of regional development
	Monitoring, evaluation and updating of NSRD

The creation of the six planning regions, which are not administrative-territorial units in the sense of the Law on Administrative-territorial Division of the Republic of Bulgaria is predetermined by the requirements of regional planning and more specifically of the requirements related to Bulgaria's accession to the European Union, where the regions of the second level of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) are the main subject of planning, programming, implementation and monitoring under Objective 1 of the Structure Funds. Table 1 shows some major data about the six planning regions in Bulgaria.

Fig.1.  Administrative-territorial structure of the country

Table 1. Planning regions (2003)

Sources: Cadastre Agency; NSI, current demographic statistics