Bulgaria: TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Overview: Bulgaria has a rather complete transportation infrastructure that has suffered from low funding and maintenance during the post-communist era. The systems are likely to benefit from new regional transport lines, four of which are scheduled to pass through Bulgaria in the next decade. Domestic transport has been dominated by surface modes, because the airline industry has developed slowly. Freight shipping is a strong point.

Roads: In the early 2000s, Bulgaria had some 37,300 kilometers of roads, all but 3,000 of which were paved but about half of which fell into the lowest international rating for paved roads. Only 324 kilometers of high-speed highways were in service in 2001. Roads have overtaken railroads as the chief mode of freight transportation. Long-term plans call for upgrading higher-quality roads and integrating the road system into the European grid. The focus is on improving road connectors with Turkey and Greece and domestic connections linking Sofia, Plovdiv, and Burgas. As of 2004, two international highways passed through Bulgaria, and a major highway ran from Sofia to the Black Sea coast. Proposed international corridors would pass from north to south, from Vidin to the border with Greece and from Ruse to the border with Greece, and west to east, from Serbia and Montenegro through Sofia to Burgas, Varna, and Edirne (Turkey). A new bridge link with Romania is scheduled for completion in 2006, relieving road and railroad congestion in that direction.

Railroads: In 2002 Bulgaria had some 6,384 kilometers of railroad track, of which 4,318 kilometers were considered main lines. Sofia is the hub of the domestic system and of international rail connections. In the mid-2000s, railroads remained a major mode of freight transportation; in 2001 some 83 percent of the railroad’s revenue came from freight charges. A recent project upgraded the line connecting Plovdiv with the Greek and Turkish borders. Despite recent privatization of some operations, the national railroad has suffered substantial financial losses in the early 2000s. In 1998 the first six kilometers of an often-interrupted 52-kilometer subway project opened in Sofia. An additional 2.5 kilometers are scheduled to open in 2006.

Ports: Bulgaria has two major ports on the Black Sea, Burgas and Varna. The ports are in good condition, and Bulgaria’s merchant fleet, run by the Navibulgar company, has been profitable in the post-communist era. Navibulgar was purchased by a domestic consortium in 2003. In 2004 the merchant marine had 60 ships of more than 1,000 gross registered tons, of which 37 were designed for bulk cargo. With foreign investment, substantial Black Sea port modernization is expected in the next decade.

Inland Waterways: The Danube, where Bulgaria has two major ports, Ruse and Vidin, is Bulgaria’s only navigable river. River transport, run by the Bulgarian River Fleet, is on a smaller scale than Bulgaria’s Black Sea shipping, but it also has been profitable. The fleet was privatized in 2004.

Civil Aviation and Airports: Compared with road and railroad transport, in Bulgaria aviation is a minor mode of freight movement, and only 860,000 passengers used Bulgarian airlines in 2001. In 2003 Bulgaria had 212 airports, of which 128 had paved runways. One airport, at Sofia, had a runway longer than 3,000 meters, and there was one heliport. The second- and third-largest airports, at Varna and Burgas, serve mainly domestic flights. In the early 2000s, Sofia Airport received substantial renovation, with aid from a Kuwaiti-led consortium, in anticipation of increased air connections with Europe. The communist-era state airline, Balkan Airlines, was replaced by Bulgaria Air, which in mid-2005 remained under state control despite efforts to privatize it. Bulgaria Air flies to all major European cities.

Pipelines: In 2004 Bulgaria had 2,425 kilometers of natural gas pipelines, 339 kilometers of oil pipelines, and 156 kilometers of pipelines for refined products. The pipeline system was scheduled for substantial changes and additions, however. The Burgas-Alexandroupolis Pipeline, terms of which were set with Greece and Russia in March 2005, would provide a bypass of the overloaded Bosporus Strait, enabling Russian oil arriving at the Bulgarian oil port of Burgas to reach Greece’s Mediterranean port at Alexandroupolis. An alternate line across Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia was put on hold by the new agreement. With international investment, Bulgaria will build a new domestic gas transportation network beginning in 2005.

Telecommunications: Bulgaria has an extensive telephone system that requires substantial modernization. Telephone service is available in most villages, and a central digital trunk line connects most regions. In 2002 there were 39 lines per 100 inhabitants, with a heavy predominance of domestic lines. In the early 2000s, the percentage of digital phones increased dramatically; starting from 15 percent in 2001, the target for 2008 was 80 percent. In 2001 some 85 percent of long-distance lines were digital. In 2004 the state-owned monopoly Bulgarian Telecommunications Company was privatized. The number of mobile phones has grown rapidly in the early 2000s; an estimated 3 million were in use at the end of 2003. Internet use remained low in 2004, when only an estimated 120,000 people owned computers. Estimates of Internet access have ranged from 14 to 17 percent of the population. In 2002 some 3.9 million radios and 3.1 million television sets were in operation.

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