Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 25 ISSUE 1
Written by Desislava TOTEVA, Atanaska DZHODZOVA

The purpose of the present study is to determine the competitiveness of the fruits sector in the world market after the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union, what is the state of fruits production, what are the challenges facing the sector and the opportunities for the development of the sector in the future. The development of the sector is determined by the demand of fruits on the world market and the traditional demand of local fruits on the national market. The novelty in this study is that the competitiveness in a static aspect is determined by the ability of agriculture in Bulgaria to expand its market share and preserve and increase the added value of production on a national and global scale. In this way, a comprehensive assessment of competitiveness is made of the fruits sector, combining both the production side and the value side. The data regard the period 2007-2022 and they have been collected from Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture – Agro statistics, International Trade Center, FAOSTAT and National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria. In order to reveal the share of local fruits production in domestic and world consumption and the change in the gross value of Bulgarian production on a national and global scale, per capita in the article is used the total index of competitiveness. In this case, the assessment of competitiveness is expressed as a quantitative value and an index, taking into account the development of the sector through selected main fruit species, which occupy a dominant share not only in production, but also in the consumption of the population. In most years of the analysed period, the production component of competitiveness exceeded the value component, which is important from the point of view of making the country's market positions more sustainable. When the value component of competitiveness exceeds the production one, it means that the country achieves higher export prices of the production, which in a highly competitive market such as the agricultural one, can hardly be sustained in the long term. The expected variability of the environment in which fruit growing in Bulgaria will function under the changed conditions of the agrarian policy creates uncertainty among producers. In this aspect, the application of the general index of competitiveness is a means to develop and define appropriate policies and decisions applicable in the coming years.

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