BBBA New Year Message January 2023
Dear Members and Partners,
On behalf of the Board and the team, I should like to wish you a happy and successful New Year both personally and for your businesses.
I am very pleased that we were able to offer a rich programme of events and activities in 2022. Despite this, of course, it has been a difficult year in many ways with a war in Europe and significant levels of price increases in both the UK and Bulgaria. We have been able to run all of our major social events in person. Two successful trade missions were run to the UK during 2022, and Bulgarian companies participated in a number of trade exhibitions with BBBA support. Also, we hosted our first UK trade mission to Bulgaria. We had a successful St. Andrews Day dinner in early December – the first in Bulgaria for a number of years. In December also there was the second ‘Green Business is Great’ conference which we plan to make an annual event.
We continue to work very closely with the British Embassy in Sofia and the Bulgarian Embassy in London – particularly with their trade teams. We remain grateful to both Embassies for their excellent support. On Brexit we are continuing to monitor any important changes in legislation, and we will keep you informed on this. As ever, if you encounter particular issues please let us know and we will try to connect you with those best placed to help. Making trade relations more effective is one of the BBBA’s key objectives.
Those of you who were at the Annual General Meeting will remember the announcement of our ‘Landing Zone’ initiative. This is a project whose mission is to support Bulgarian innovative companies to scale-up in the UK. It is still in the development phase but prepare to hear more details as 2023 progresses. We intend to continue and develop our programme of trade missions, networking functions and seminars in 2023, now that the activities that we can run are back to normal. If you have any particular ideas, please let us know and we will endeavour to include them.
I should also like to thank our Executive Director, Desislava Miteva, and her team for all the work they have been doing for BBBA and continue to do. We have an excellent team who enable us to carry out our very active programme. I am also very grateful to my colleagues at the BBBA Board for their dedication and strategic vision. I look forward to meeting many of you at our first Executive Lunch for 2023 on 24 January.
Gilbert McCaul
BBBA Chair