Bulgarian Has Come to Europe
Bulgarian is an Indo-Germanic language that is spoken in Bulgaria, in parts of Greece, Turkey, Romania, Russia and Ukraine by a total of 9 million people.
Since 1 January 2007 Bulgarian is one of the official languages of the European Union. Bulgarian is written in a Cyrillic script just as Russian and Serbian. The language closest related to the Bulgarian is the Macedonian. In Bulgaria, Macedonian is designated as a dialect of the Bulgarian.
The vocabulary consists in large part of loan words from the Greek and the Turkish. Since the 19th century there have repeatedly been efforts to replace Turkish terms with words that come primarily from the Russian. These endeavours have particularly had an effect on the written language; the colloquial language is still rich in Turkish elements.
Thanks to the economic opening and Bulgaria's admission to the European Union, Bulgarian - just as Romanian - has become one of the important European languages. Germany is Bulgaria's most important trading partner. Over 5,000 German firms are actively trading with Bulgaria; of them, 1,200 are represented locally. All the important German trade fairs have representative offices in Bulgaria.
With over 380 members the German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry & Commerce (DBIHK) has been present in Sofia since March 2004. The tourism industry, among others, provides excellent prospects for investment too. More than 520,000 Germans visited Bulgaria in 2006. Independent travel looks like it can be developed, eco- and spa tourism and hiking in particular, though the winter sports sector as well.
The most important Bulgarian industrial sectors are the chemical industry, foods and food processing, tobacco industry, metalworking industry, mechanical engineering, textile industry, glass and porcelain industry, coal production, steel production, power industry and tourism.
