site.btaBulgarian Apparel, Textile Sector Emerges from Covid Crisis - Expert

The Bulgarian textile and clothing industry is emerging from the crisis caused by the COVID pandemic, according to Borislava Stoimenova, marketing expert at the Bulgarian Association for Textile, Apparel and Leather (BATOK). She was speaking Wednesday at a two-day international conference on the fashion industry in Bulgaria, organized by BATOK in partnership with the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency.

Bulgaria exports apparel to 154 countries and textiles to 141 countries, with Italy, Germany and France atop the list of destination markets. Italy's share is by far the largest, and that also applies for the leather industry.

Before the COVID-19 crisis, the sector accounted for some 11 per cent of the country’s exports with about 90% of the sector's output going for export. With crisis occurring one on top of the other, the textile, clothing and leather industry took a bad blow but the decline has not been dramatic and the picture is improving now, Stoimenova said.

The sector saw a decline in the number of employees in the last three years from 100,000 to 80,000. Employment, however, is mainly full-time and the average wage is higher than the minimum wage for Bulgaria, Stoimenova said.