Various charts of companies around the world are important as they provide information about the structure of the economy of a specific country and its place in the world. That is why two rankings published these days attracted the interest of Bulgarian business. The first one lists the 500 biggest companies in Central and Eastern Europe and was compiled by Deloitte. The second is national and its author is the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  The Top 100 chart of the BCCI is published for the 16th year in a row and presents companies with the best performance in 2013 keeping in mind 5 important indicators. If we add to these data the recently published Capital 100 Chart of Bulgarian business newspaper Capital, we are to get a more complete picture of the status and problems of the Bulgarian business.

the European Top 500 chart of Deloitte includes just seven Bulgarian companies, which is 1.percent of all observed companies in 18 Central and Eastern European countries. This fact itself speaks about the scope of business in this country as Bulgarian companies perform in a very modest way internationally. The best performing company is Lukoil Neftohim, which is a company owned by Russian energy giant Lukoil, which deals with oil refining and marketing of petroleum products. This company looks really impressive according to Bulgarian standards and takes the top place in the chart of the Bulgarian business newspaper. In the Deloitte chart Lukoil ranks 27th with revenues of just under 4 billion euro for 2013. The 40th place in this year's ranking is the Himimport Company, which has revenues of over 3.1 billion euro. The Aurubis metallurgical plant, owned by German investors, takes the 61st place with revenues of 2.3 billion. The total revenues of all companies included in the chart are 712 billion euro. With a dose of pride Bulgarian business points out that more than half of Bulgarian companies included in the Top 500 are actually among the top 100 of the business leaders in Central and Eastern Europe.

The business chart of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry takes a look at Bulgarian business from a different perspective. It is trying to show the realities most average Bulgarian companies face in order to take a deeper look into the economic fabric of the country. The survey of the Chamber included 6230 companies producing 82.05percent of GDP in 2013. Seventy Seven percent of the companies in the list are small enterprises and only 16 percent are larger ones. This reflects well the structure of business in Bulgaria, which consists of mostly family and small enterprises. It is remarkable that at the backdrop of political instability and sharp disagreements on the political arena, companies in the top 100 hundred managed to double growth (207 percent) in sales revenue in 2013 compared to 2012, reaching more than 360 million euros. Most companies included in the survey are not very popular to the general public and media, but they still play a significant role in their respective sectors. Obviously, the gradual overcoming of the economic crisis is thanks to their activities, despite the insufficient economic growth. When we take a look at business giants on top positions we see they all mark a decline of revenues or they remained the same. Results of companies in the first quarter of 2014 show that for most of them stagnation this year has actually turned into a true decline. This is the title of the annual report of Deloitte Central Europe Top 500, which outlines the gradual deterioration of economic and business environment in all countries of Central Europe and draws a rather pessimistic picture of the financial prospects of the largest companies in the coming months.

English: Alexander Markov