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)
===Statistics===
Statistic / Year 	1999 	2000 	2001 	2002 	2003 	2004 	2005 	2006 	2007 	2008
GDP (million USD)World Bank. "Bulgaria: GDP", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	12 946	12 599	13 599	15 600	19 986	24 648	27 188	31 656	39 549	49 900
Govt. debt (% of GDP)World Bank. "Bulgaria: government debt", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)World Bank. "Bulgaria: government revenue", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	33.131	33.690	33.003	33.001	35.192	37.378	38.273	36.635	37.150	36.356
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)World Bank. "Bulgaria: government expenses", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29.	31.020	32.315	31.280	32.508	33.820	34.583	33.638	31.679	31.990	30.908
Debt to revenue (years) 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
==References==
Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.
==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
Category:Countries