The Bulgarian Chairmanship-in-Office of the South East European Cooperation Process (CiO SEECP) has kicked off its activities with the two-day event in Sofia focusing on the state of regional economy and ways to improve it. Taking part in today’s round table which gathered representatives of the SEE ministries of economy, the Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), Goran Svilanovic, welcomed the focus on business and investment. “This really is the issue of the day, two thirds of the population polled recently by RCC said that unemployment and the state of the economy is the number one issue in the region”.

Since 2010 the region had zero growth with a slight improvement expected over the next couple of years. The best way to boost the results, said Svilanovic, is for the region to be a truly integrated market, to be one economy. “Of course, our joint aspiration is a single market within a single, enlarged EU, but in the meantime, we need to find ways to consolidate the region”. This, emphasized Svilanovic, should make the investors and economic operators see us as a single economy, making us interesting both as a market and investment opportunity.