Bulgaria

The Bulgars, a Central Asian Turkic tribe, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state. In succeeding centuries, Bulgaria struggled with the Byzantine Empire to assert its place in the Balkans, but by the end of the 14th century the country was overrun by the Ottoman Turks. Northern Bulgaria attained autonomy in 1878 and all of Bulgaria became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1908. Having fought on the losing side in both World Wars, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence and became a People's Republic in 1946. Communist domination ended in 1990, when Bulgaria held its first multiparty election since World War II and began the contentious process of moving toward political democracy and a market economy while combating inflation, unemployment, corruption, and crime. The country joined NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007.

Economical characteristics

 * Currency: Lev (ISO code: BGN)
 * Central bank discount rate: 0.55% (31 December 2009)
 * Commercial banks lending rate: 10.86% (31 December 2008)
 * Stock of money (M1): $12.63 billion (31 December 2009)
 * Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $20.61 billion (31 December 2009)

Notable events:

 * Banking crisis: 1995-1997
 * Public default: 1916-1920, 1932, 1990-1994 (external)

Links

 * Bulgaria on Wikipedia
 * Central bank of Bulgaria
 * Country profile (pdf) from the Enterprise Studies page (part of the The World Bank Group)
 * Studies from the Library of Congress (1986-1998)
 * BBC country profile