2024-03-01 12:11:06
State and business should look in the same direction, we need more transparency, urged President Rumen Radev, who presented the first prize
“We need to make it so that the state and business look in the same direction and have a high level of ambition, cooperate and be partners”. President Rumen Radev called for this, who opened the 3rd ceremony for the annual awards for the Bulgarian producers “Golden March”.
“We are no longer talking only about a reduced administrative burden. About a predictable and sustainable regulatory environment to do business in Bulgaria, but also to help this business. If we want to have a full budget, if we want the government to proudly allocate a large resource, the government, the legislator, the state must help, sometimes even with something elementary, even with information,” said Radev.
“We see the drive of small and medium-sized businesses. With a lot of innovation, a high level of ambition and enormous work, how it flies forward and at the same time the state drags, and sometimes the reverse gear is turned on,” the president also said.
He recalled that during the caretaker government, two of his ministers toured the entire country, even the most remote places. “They found four applications for the Recovery and Resilience Plan, and ended their term with 4,000 applications from across the country. This money is being paid, it’s BGN 820 million. I expect it to work like this, to continue at this pace,” Radev urged the authorities.
“I regularly travel around the country and two things impress me – the hope and the contrast. It’s wonderful to travel around Bulgaria and see how in recent years great small and medium-sized enterprises have sprung up one after another. Let’s see how people with a lot of creativity, with innovative methods, with the most modern forms of management, with corporate social responsibility succeed, create a product, sometimes boutique, but on a global level. One feels hope and pride that this is happening in Bulgaria. However, on the other side is the contrast. We talk and often we resent how Europe can develop at two speeds, at five speeds, we say no, we must be where the fastest speed is as a country,” concluded Radev.
The “Golden March” awards are given to the “Made in Bulgaria – Union of Small and Medium Businesses” association. This year’s awards were in four categories: for a company that has established its trademark on international markets, for a small enterprise with a unique product, for a successful innovative company and for successful female entrepreneurship.
Wine estate “Dragomir” received the prize for a company that imposed its brand outside of Bulgaria personally from the president Rumen Radev. It turned out that he personally knows the work of the winery. “Everything there, apart from high-tech, is transparent, like in an aquarium, everything is visible.” , he shared. And he did not fail to call for “everything in the state to become so transparent. The wine cellar was created by the enologist family Natalia and Konstantin. In 2006, they started their own limited production – 70,000-90,000 bottles per year. In 2017, they also created their own vineyard. The new super winery “Dragomir” was opened in 2020 in the village of Brestnik, 10 km from Plovdiv. In 2022, the winery enters the top 100 of the best in the world.
The second award went to the “Caviar Couture” fashion house. It is known as one of the most successful Bulgarian brands, followed by all influential world fashion publications. The fashion house is also the only one of our brands that participated in the Star Showroom at the Cannes Film Festival. Right there, in 2023, it presented a record 13 looks worn by popular socialites. In the same year, May Musk, the mother of one of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk, chooses a dress of the brand for the cover of the global magazine InStyle. Caviar is also the first and so far the only brand worn at the aristocratic debutante ball in Paris. “Looking through a world-famous fashion magazine, I came across an exquisite dress and was surprised to find out that it was from a Bulgarian brand. Of course, I dreamed of having such a dress,” shared Vice President Iliana Yotova , which presented the second “Golden March”. And received promises of an even more beautiful dress.
“Golden March” for consistently high quality production received “Karnobatplod”. The company specializes in the production of fruit and vegetable preserves, without any preservatives or colorings. Part of the production is traditional Bulgarian fruit compotes. Recently, their new line of innovative NOOTRO sweets, without added sugar, has been on the market. The company’s motto is “we produce not just food, but we make art of taste”. The exquisite martenitsa was presented by the deputy chairman of the economic commission in the parliament, Petar Kanev. He himself is the recipient of one of the first “martenichki”. “I am lucky to reward a company from my region that elected me as an MP. We politicians very often, instead of taking care of small and medium-sized businesses, “take care” of the medium until we make it small,” Kanev said. And he concluded that the state still remains a debtor to small and medium-sized companies.
The last “Golden March” for successful female entrepreneurship went to the elegant hands of Irina Nedkova, owner and manager of the company “Irini Studio OOD”. The brand is for luxury children’s fashion and is the first company to receive a loan under the SMART LADY program of the First Investment Bank in 2018. With children’s and women’s fashion, Nedkova participates in prestigious exhibitions abroad and already has an established network of agents and distributors in Europe and the Middle East. “We work with small businesses to make them at least medium-sized.” This is how PIB Chief Executive Officer Nikolay Bakalov continued Petar Kanev’s line.