BULGARIAN BRANCH CHAMBER

MACHINE BUILDING

The Bulgarian Interbranch Chamber of Machine-building is a non-profit association providing support, encouragement, representation and protection of its members’ interests. Established in 1991 as an individual legal person – a non-governmental organisation, the Chamber also maintains contacts with similar organisations in Germany, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Austria and a number of other countries.

         Members of the Chamber are around 180 companies from all branches of machine-building with their production volume totalling over 80% of the overall machine-building production in the country.

          A voluntary organisation by nature, the interbranch Chamber has primarily coordinating functions. It supports its members in the implementation of various activities of common interest:

·        in the field of social partnership, including participation on the Employers’ side in discussions and agreements on the Interbranch collective labour agreement for the machine-building sphere and settling collective labour disputes in its member companies;

·        in establishing direct contacts with foreign companies for cooperation, joint production and other issues of mutual interest;

·        organising and conducting business visits abroad, cooperation exchanges with interested foreign companies, etc. events;

·        assist companies in rising their competitiveness by means of supporting them in the development and certification of quality and environment management systems;

·        offer suggestions to competent authorities in drafting new legislation acts and making amendments and supplements to legislation acts currently in force relative to the development of the economy and the particular branch;

·        provide information on opportunities for participation in trade fairs and exhibitions home and abroad. Assist companies in participating in fairs and exhibitions making use of some preferential terms offered by the Technical Cooperation programme of Germany, the Swiss company SIPPO, the Export Promotion Center, the FLAG Consortium of USA, etc.;

·        organise meetings between companies from particular branches of the machine-building sector on matters of common interest;

·        assist and advise companies on clarification and possible solutions to problem issues;

·        assist and organise specialised training courses.