News

Following are some key facts about Bulgaria:

THE ECONOMY

- The global economic downturn has hit Bulgaria hard, along with other eastern European countries, as foreign investors flee their emerging economies, exports drop and demand plunges.
- The economy contracted by 3.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009, entering recession for the first time in 12 years. The International Monetary Fund sees it shrinking by 2 percent in 2009, compared with annual growth rates of more than 6 percent in recent years.
- The government has limited spending to 90 percent of the budgeted amount in response to the crisis and frozen plans to raise public sector salaries. Analysts say further cuts are needed to avoid slipping into deficit that could shake up the country''s currency board.
- A growing number of economists say Bulgaria might be the next in line after Hungary, Latvia, Serbia, Romania and Poland to seek IMF aid.
- Bulgaria operates in a currency board regime, which pegs its lev currency to the euro and curtails monetary operations, leaving fiscal policy as its key tool to influence the economy.

SOME KEY DETAILS

CAPITAL: Sofia with 1.2 million inhabitants.
POPULATION: 7.6 million, according to the statistics office.
ETHNICITY: 83.9 percent ethnic Bulgarians, 9.4 percent ethnic Turks, 4.7 Roma Gypsies and 2.0 percent Russian, Armenian and other, according to the 2001 census.
LANGUAGE: The official language is Bulgarian.
RELIGION: Christian Eastern Orthodoxy is practised by 83 percent of Bulgarians, while 12 percent are Muslims.
GEOGRAPHY: The area is 110,994 sq km (42,855 sq miles). Bulgaria is bordered to the north by Romania, to the east by the Black Sea, to the south by Turkey and Greece, to the west by Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia.

KEY HISTORIC FACTS

- Established in 681 AD, Bulgaria spent half of the last millennium as part of the Ottoman Empire. It became an independent constitutional monarchy in 1908. Sofia was a Nazi ally in World War Two but switched sides towards the end of the conflict.
- The communists took power in 1944 and ruled until Nov. 10, 1989, when top communist officials ousted Soviet-backed dictator Todor Zhivkov and restored democratic rule.
- Bulgaria became a NATO member in 2004 and joined the European Union in 2007.
- In 2001, ex-king Simeon Saxe-Coburg entered the election race three months ahead of the vote. Inspiring a wave of national pride, he stormed to power in a landslide election victory with 120 of parliament''s 240 seats.
- Four years later Bulgarians, disappointed with persistent low living standards, supported the Socialists -the reformed communists- who formed a coalition with Simeon Saxe-Coburg''s party and the ethnic Turkish MRF.
- The Socialists raised salaries and pensions, but also earned the country the tag of being the poorest and most corrupt EU state and the right-wing opposition party GERB of Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov is tipped to win the July 5 polls.