Blagoevgrad Municipality has elaborated a Development Strategy for attracting investors. By its implementation is targeted a continuous economic growth and increase of employment in the region. There are three macro projects which, for a long term,will attract the necessary workforce, will establish the transport and business infrastructure for stable and successful investments, and will generate new workplaces. The results of these three components are mutually supportive (the achievement of each of them makes more possible the achievement of the other ones) as the three projects are the approach which the Municipality provides for the beginning of a spiral continuously overbuilding its effects in the territory development.
INTERNATIONAL INTER-EXPO CENTER
Blagoevgrad has a developed project for the building of a uniform International Inter Expo Center which will serve as a hub for cross-border business activities. Its purpose is entrepreneurs and companies from Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia to find partners, exhibit their products and organize conferences. Through this project international business networks will be established,which will facilitate the information flow regarding demand and supply of services and products through the borders, and will lead to an increase in business activity levels and opening of new workplaces.
In the International Inter Expo Center, in addition to the areas for commercial sites, exhibition areas, and office spaces for regional companies, an Orthodox temple will also be built. The availability of such a Center will directly decrease the company costs for marketing and promotion, and in this way will release resources for management and investments in innovative business processes, physical and human capital.
The construction of an industrial park with production area, where companies with import/export activities at the port of Thessaloniki, Greece, as well as other Bulgarian and foreign production and logistic companies can operate, is also planned.
The project for the Center will be selected after an architecture and design competition and will be broadly presented before specialists and the local community. The Expo Center may turn into one of the symbols of modern Blagoevgrad.
LOGISTIC TRANSPORT CENTER
The second strategic project is associated with the building of a Logistic Transport Center on municipal terrains, adjoined to the highway, which will include warehouses, customs terminals, equipped parking facilities, restaurants, hotels, etc.
The latest technologies for automated optimization of the transport flow will be used at the highway exits and between the buildings and facilities of the complex.This will allow the Center, within this project, to be only the initial infrastructure framework of a considerably larger complex expanded additionally by private investments. Blagoevgrad is excellently positioned in this context in order to turn into a logistic center, but the first steps have to be made early and as part of the overall strategy for territory development.
The agglomeration economies which are accumulated with the building of a logistic center mean that sometimes the transport hubs are not the most optimal ones in terms of geographic location, butare the ones for which the economic costs for building additional infrastructure (warehouses, depots, etc.)are the lowest in view of position. The place of Blagoevgrad in the future transport and economic network of the country is more than guaranteed. The possible benefits of the project are direct ones (increased traffic and workplaces during the infrastructure building), as well as indirect ones – increased business activity, improved business conditions, attracted foreign investments, new workplaces.
BALKAN UNIVERSITY CENTER
Blagoevgrad has already undertaken the first steps on the way to become a real university city. Both universities – NeofitRilski SouthWest University and the American University in Bulgaria (AUB) are home of an active student society of over 15,000 young people who bring practically immeasurable benefit to the local economy. In view of the trends for increase in the university education demand, Blagoevgrad may be a real training center, significant not only in national, but also in regional aspect.
More and more frequently, the decision in which institution the student will acquire his/her education is also based on additional arguments, for instance,to what extend the city,where the institution is located,provides good and safety living conditions and whether the social and cultural life in the university is adequate. This strategic project of the municipality envisages the building of university complexes with world class student residences (campus),where students can find their home,can have better socialization conditions, and can establish networks of contacts. Libraries, research laboratories, university clinics and laboratories specialized inspeech-language pathologies and kinesiotherapy will be built and equipped within the campuses. The architecture of the university buildings will completely conform to the modern standards for size of educational premises, the availability of meeting rooms and ceremonial halls, equipment, etc. All buildings will be A class.
The attraction and retaining of young people in the city will lead to additional purchasing power on one hand, and the project itself will establish new workplaces for the local society on the other hand.
