UBOMIR MINCHEV, EXECUTIVE director of mobile telephone software company Telelink, is one of the new breed of Bulgarian entrepreneurs. Like many of the country's leading politicians and businessmen, Minchev is a former investment banker. He set up Telelink only two years ago and has seen it grow to a point where it employs more than 100 people. Most of them are young and all but a handful have university degrees.
Telelink's offices are in one of the modern industrial parks outside the capital, Sofia, that are home to the growing number of western information technology and industrial firms that have invested in Bulgaria in the 13 years since the collapse of communism. Already Bulgaria has attracted blue-chip firms ranging from US information technology company Hewlett-Packard to Belgian metal refiner Umicore.
The management and staff in these companies are mostly under 35 years old, well qualified and confident that Bulgaria's future lies in a western market economy that is a full member of the EU and Nato. "Bulgaria is moving ever closer to having a similar structure to a western economy," says Minchev.
Business remains one of the strongest backers of the technocratic government of Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha, which was swept to power in June 2001, promising a wave of pro-market reforms.