Regional Economy Within the Context of Bioeconomy

Abstract

The importance of bioeconomy for society and its development in the 21st century creates responsibility to monitor how national and regional economies in Europe respond to the cause called bioeconomy. The report aims to trace the change in the sectoral structure of the economy in the NUTS 2 regions in Bulgaria, paying particular attention to those who are primary consumers and producers of biological resources. For the objective and the tasks of the present study methodology for structural analysis based on aggregated nomenclature А10 from the Classification of Economic Activities (NACE.BG 2008) is applied, as well as other economic and statistical methods of analysis - growth rate and accretion, localization quotient and concentration. The indicators used are the number of employees per sector and share in the GVA of each region for four selected economic activities. The results of the study refer to the change in their localization benefits by regions for the period 2007-2016. The conclusions point to the need for a targeted support approach for identifying and developing sectoral and technological niches of bioeconomy that are promising for the respective region as well the need to develop regional statistical information for the bioeconomic sector.