Sofia and Varna make global top 100 for innovation competitiveness

Sofia City and Varna rank among the top 100 regions for innovation competitiveness in the latest Transatlantic Subnational Innovation Competitiveness Index, published by the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne.

The third edition of the index compares 213 regions across 13 countries. Sofia City ranks 69th and Varna 94th. Sofia is 40th for its “knowledge economy”, but 85th for innovation capacity and 178th for “globalisation”, a category combining high-tech exports and foreign investment, BTA reported.

Sofia ranks third for the share of university graduates among people aged 25 to 64, at 55%. Only Budapest, at 59%, and the Warsaw metropolitan region, at 57%, rank higher. 

Sofia leads the ranking for households with broadband internet access, at 98.6%.

At the other end of the scale, nine of the ten regions with the lowest productivity in manufacturing are in Bulgaria.

Editor: Miglena Ivanova