Millions of children around the world enjoy every day the toy surprises in Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs. A company in Plovdiv also contributes to the smiles of children. It turns out that most of the plastic toys would not be a reality if the machine-building factory in Southern Bulgaria was not functioning. This is because the molds of the plastic surprises are made in Plovdiv. The requirements for making those molds are big but the Bulgarian company has managed to meet the challenges.

The Bulgarian company has successfully replaced an English company producing metal spirals and a German one for the production of printed circuit boards. It turns out that the second largest city in this country has good positions in global markets thanks to a local company that does business for millions.  
 
Plovdiv is known as an important commercial center. No wonder that every year the biggest technological exhibition in Bulgaria is held in the city, which attracts the interest of a number of manufacturers in various fields of industry. One of the partners of foreign companies in the field of engineering is the Bulgarian Industrial Group (BIG). It occupies the prestigious fourth place in the world when it comes to production of metal spirals.  
 
CEO of BIG, Dimo Zafirov, told us more about the company’s success:  
 
"We produce mostly metal spiral binding, which seemed to be something small. When we began to produce and sell, it became clear that we could reach the second or third place in Europe and this makes producing such things profitable.” 
 
Initially the Plovdiv company started with a team of three people, and today there are over 140 workers. It is hard to find qualified people who know how to do things according to the requirements of quality of the market, says the head of the company.  
 
Is partnership between Bulgarian and foreign companies difficult?  

"This is a long process. Approximately six out of one hundred calls for orders end with success. Until now no one had concerns related to the fact that production is in Bulgaria. We have below 0.00001% of returns for our metal spirals. This is the result of a good system for quality control,” says Mr. Zafirov. 
 
Another factor that convinces us this is a world-class company is the minimal effect the financial crisis had on its production. We did not mark any decline and expect to start growing again soon, as Europe has already noticeably started to stabilize," BIG executive director Dimo Zafirov says. 
 
He told us more about his opinion on the Bulgarian economy. 

"Bulgarian economy is tough and with efforts it has managed to withstand a lot of hard shocks. I am far from being a pessimist about the current situation. There are enough examples that show positive developments. In a different situation we could easily reach the European level. We should not be pre-framed, saying we cannot be successful in this country. We need to start thinking as Europeans!”

English: Alexander Markov