SOFIA is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Bulgaria. It has a population in excess of 1.2 million, making it the 14th largest city in the European Union.
Located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of the mountain massif Vitosha, the city is the country’s administrative, cultural, economic, and educational centre.
It is one of the oldest capitals in Europe, with a history dating back to the eighth century BC when Thracians established a settlement there.
Sofia is the hub of Bulgaria's economy. Manufacturing is represented by over 800 large plants, producing such things as metal products, textiles, rubber and leather goods, printing and electronics.
The city is also the country's financial hub - home to the Bulgarian National Bank, the Bulgarian Stock Exchange and some of the country's largest commercial banks, many of which are housed in eye-catching buildings of the sort pictured.
Construction and transport are other important sectors of the economy.
Increasingly, Sofia is attracting attention as an outsourcing location for western European and American multi-nationals. It is also the headquarters for major Bulgarian and international companies operating across the whole country and elsewhere in eastern Europe.
Real estate prices have risen quickly in Sofia in recent years - by as much as 100 per cent in 2005/06. The construction industry has enjoyed a boom, with new sites popping up everywhere.
Unemployment in Sofia is low - 2.5 per cent - compared to the Bulgarian average of 7.25 per cent and to European levels of more than seven per cent.
With a well-developed infrastructure and its strategic location, Sofia is an important international crossroads.
All major forms of transport (except water) are represented in the city, which is home to eight railway stations and the national flight control centre, while three trans-European road routes cross the city.
Public transport is well-developed, reliable and important to the
city's economy - a mixture of underground trains (Serdika station is pictured left), buses, trams and
trolleybuses, and more than 15,000 licensed taxis.
The subway
network is relatively new, starting only in the late 1990s, and its
coverage is limited, but set to expand when major additions are completed later in 2008.
In the meantime,
the extensive growth of car ownership - the number of vehicles
registered has exceeded one million in the past five years - has
brought severe congestion and air pollution to the city.
Sofia
has a very large combined heat and power plant. Virtually the entire
city - 900,000 homes and 5,900 business premises - are centrally heated
using residual heat from electricity generation and gas- and oil-fired
furnaces.
Bulgaria: Plovdiv
PLOVDIV is the second-largest city in Bulgaria.
It has a population of almost 380,000 and is the
administrative centre of the Plovdiv Province in the south of the country.
It is also the largest and most important city of the
historical region of Upper (or Northern) Thrace and an important centre for
commerce, culture, education and transport.
Straddling the Maritsa River, the city is built on seven
hills, some of which are 250 metres high.
Plovdiv is the venue for a number of annual economic and
cultural events such as the International Fair.
A ten-week fair was
established in 1892 as an industrial and agricultural exhibition. In its first
year, it attracted exhibitors from 24 countries and 162,000 visitors.
The modern fair is the largest of its kind in south-eastern
Europe, housed in an exhibition complex of 360,000 square metres and making use
of 24 of the complex’s multi-functional pavilions.
The complex plays host to some 40 trade shows and fairs a
year, attracting 7,000 exhibitors from 58 countries.
Plovdiv sits in the centre of a rich agricultural region and
its economic development reflects that: from the beginning of the 20th century
the city prospered as a place for the processing of food – including beer – tobacco
and textiles.
During the period of socialist control the city's economy
expanded rapidly, dominated by heavy industry - it still produces lead and
zinc, heavy machinery, electronics, commercial vehicles, chemicals and cosmetics.
Plovdiv has one of the country's healthiest economies with
average growth in gross domestic product of 12-13 per cent. Unemployment, at
6.5 per cent, is significantly below the national average.
Industry has been expanding again since the late 1990s, with
manufacturing plants being built mainly in the municipality of Maritsa.
In the past decade, the city has invested some €500 million
in building new factories. It has attracted the largest electronics plant in
the Balkans to the nearby village of Voivodinovo.
A demand for office space has led to the development of a
110,000 square-metre business park in the Trakiya district of the city – an investment
of €68 million. Plovdiv has built trade
centres, mainly in the inner city, and hypermarkets, mainly on the outskirts.
It
has developed a number of cafés, craft workshops and souvenir shops in the old
town and small streets in the centre, known to locals as The Trap.
Plovdiv is an international road transport hub. Three of ten
pan-European corridors run through or near the city.
The main airport is 12 kilometres south-east of the city. At
the moment it only takes charter flights, but there are plans to modernise and
expand it.
Around two thirds of the citizens have specialized secondary
or higher education – that percentage has increased since 1992. The city has six
universities and a number of state and private colleges.
Plovdiv’s sports complex is the largest in eastern Europe –
it is situated in a palatial park to the west of the city centre and south of
the Maritza River.
It consists of a 55,000-seat stadium – the largest football
venue in Bulgaria – with additional football fields, tennis courts and swimming
pools. It also has a three kilometre rowing channel.
Our pictures (top to bottom) show:
AROUND TOWN: four views of the city. RETAIL THERAPY: one of the city's new trade centres. BIG MATCH: Plovdiv's impressive sports complex.
Caribbean: Barbados
BARBADOS is an independent nation in the western Atlantic Ocean. It lies in the southern Caribbean region; part of the Lesser Antilles island-chain.
Its closest island neighbours are St. Vincent and St. Lucia to the west. To the south it borders Trinidad and Tobago - with which it now shares a fixed official maritime boundary - and the South American mainland, 270 miles south of the island.
The total land area is about 430 square kilometres, (166 square miles), and is primarily low-lying, with some higher regions in the island's interior.
The organic composition of Barbados is thought to be of non-volcanic origin and is predominantly composed of limestone-coral formed by the South American tectonic plate colliding with the Caribbean one.
The island's climate is tropical, with constant trade winds off the Atlantic Ocean serving to keep temperatures mild.
Some more undeveloped areas of the country contain tropical woodland and scrubland. Other parts of the interior which contribute to the agriculture industry are dotted with large sugarcane estates and wide, gently sloping pastures, with many good views down to the coast.
Barbados has one of the highest standards of living and literacy rates anywhere in the world. Despite its diminutive size, Barbados's human development index ranking is consistently among the top 50 - in 2006, it was ranked 31st in the world, and fourth in the Americas, behind Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico.
Historically, the economy was dependent on sugarcane cultivation and related activities, but in recent years it has diversified into the manufacturing and tourism sectors.
Offshore finance and information services have become increasingly important foreign exchange earners, and there is a healthy light manufacturing sector.
In recent years the government has been seen as business-friendly and economically sound. Since the late 1990s the island has enjoyed a boom in construction, with the development and redevelopment of hotels, office complexes, and homes.
The government continues its efforts to reduce unemployment, encourage direct foreign investment, and privatize remaining state-owned enterprises.
Unemployment has come down from around 14 per cent in the past to under 10 per cent now.
The economy contracted in 2001 and 2002 due to a dip in tourism and consumer spending and the impact of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. But the economy rebounded in 2003 and has shown consistent growth since 2004.
Traditional trading partners include Canada, the Caribbean Community (especially Trinidad and Tobago), the United Kingdom and the United States.
Business links and investment flows have become substantial: in 2003 the island received Canadian investment of C$25 billion, making Barbados one of Canada's top five destinations for foreign direct investment.
Eugene Melnyk of Toronto, Canada is said to be the island’s richest permanent resident.
Caribbean: Jamaica
JAMAICA is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres (146 miles) in length and as much as 80 kilometres (50m) in width situated in the Caribbean Sea.
It is about 620 kilometres (385m) north-east of central America, 145 kilometres (90m) south of Cuba, and 190 kilometres (120m) west of the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated.
Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning either Land of Springs, or Land of Wood and Water.
Formerly a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it later became the British West Indies Crown colony of Jamaica. It is the third most populous anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States and Canada.
Jamaica is a mixed, free-market economy with state enterprises as well as private sector businesses. Major sectors of the Jamaican economy include agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism and financial and insurance services.
Tourism and mining are the leading foreign exchange earners. Supported by multilateral financial institutions, Jamaica has, since the early 1980s, sought to implement structural reforms aimed at fostering private sector activity and increasing the role of market forces in resource allocation.
Since the early 1990s, the government has followed a programme of economic liberalisation and stabilisation; removing exchange controls, floating the exchange rate, cutting tariffs, stabilising the Jamaican currency, reducing inflation and removing restrictions on foreign investment.
Jamaica has a wide variety of industrial and commercial activities. The aviation industry is able to perform most routine aircraft maintenance, except for heavy structural repairs. There is a considerable amount of technical support for transport and agricultural aviation.
Jamaica has a considerable amount of industrial engineering, light manufacturing, including metal fabrication, metal roofing, and furniture manufacturing.
Food and beverage processing, glassware manufacturing, computer software and data processing, printing and publishing, insurance underwriting, music and recording, and advanced education activities can be found in the larger urban areas.
The Jamaican construction industry is entirely self-sufficient, with professional technical standards and guidance.
Since the first quarter of 2006, the economy of Jamaica has undergone a period of staunch growth. With inflation for the 2006 calendar year down to six per cent and unemployment down to 8.9 per cent, the nominal GDP grew by 2.9 per cent.
An investment programme in island transportation and utility infrastructure and gains in the tourism, mining, and service sectors all contributed to this figure.
In 2006, Jamaica became a founding member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its single market economy (CSME).
MARITIME HERITAGE: Our picture shows fishing boats and bauxite cargo ships sharing the same waterway near Alligator Pond, Jamaica.
Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago
THE REPUBLIC of Trinidad and Tobago is a group of 23 islands in the southern Caribbean, lying north-east of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles.
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two main islands; Tobago is much smaller, comprising about six per cent of the republic’s area and four per cent of its population.
The islands enjoy a tropical climate, where plants and flowers grow in abundance including the vivid orange Chaconia, the republic's national flower (pictured).
Trinidad was named by Christopher Columbus for the Holy Trinity of the Christian Church - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Tobago’s cigar-like shape gave it its Spanish name (cabaco, tavaco, tabaco) and possibly its Amerindian names of Aloubaéra (black conch) and Urupaina (big snail).
Informally, Trinidadians and Tobagonians are referred to collectively as Trinbagonians or Trinis. The country is famous for its pre-Lenten carnival and as the birthplace of steel-pan, calypso and limbo.
Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago is primarily an industrialised country. The capital city, Port-of-Spain, is a candidate to host the headquarters of a permanent secretariat for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Trinidad's economy is strongly influenced by the petroleum industry, but tourism and manufacturing are also important. Tourism is a growing sector, although not proportionately as significant as in many other Caribbean islands. The economy benefits from low inflation and a trade surplus.
Agricultural products include sugar cane, citrus and cocoa with sugar cane continuing to be a prominent crop of Trinidad.
Long-term growth looks promising, as Trinidad and Tobago continues to develop its hydrocarbon, petrochemical, and metals sectors - with significant increases in exports - and to diversify further into services and tourism.
Trinidad and Tobago's recent strong growth has led to trade surpluses over the past four years, despite high import levels resulting from industrial expansion and increased consumer demand.
The debt service ratio was just 4.7 per cent in 2004, falling to 2.5 per cent in 2005. In 2006, unemployment fell to five per cent from 6.7 per cent in 2005.
The petrochemical sector, including methanol, ammonia, urea, and liquefied natural gas (LNG), has continued to grow and has experienced a new burst of activity with the resumption of full-scale production of all existing facilities.
Natural gas production continues to expand and should meet the needs of the many industrial plants coming on stream in the next three years.
Reductions in subsidies for state enterprises have contributed to fiscal soundness and lent credibility to the government's divestment programme.
Companies all or partially divested include the National Fisheries Company, BWIA West Indies Airways (now Caribbean Airlines), National Flour Mills (NFM) and the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission.
Some companies presently building large industrial plants at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate in central Trinidad are concerned that the existing water supply will not be adequate. The government is addressing this problem with the construction of a desalination plant.
Infrastructure improvement, especially rural roads and bridges, rural electrification and telephone service, and drainage and sewerage, are among the government's priorities, and receive support from multilateral development agencies and the European Union.
Cellular telephone services are widespread and have been a major area of growth for several years. Digicel and Laqtel were granted licenses in 2005, breaking the monopoly of a company jointly owned by the government and Cable and Wireless.
The Internet has come into widespread use, but service can be slow at peak times - the government has been slow to open up this market to competition.
Czech Republic: Prague
Prague
has been the political, cultural, and economic centre of the Czech state for
over 1,100 years and is now the capital city of the Czech Republic.
Straddling
the Vltava River in central Bohemia, the city is home to more than 1.2 million
people, while its greater metropolitan hinterland has a population of over 1.9
million – collectively that’s similar to south London (three million).
Prague
is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe with examples from all major
architectural periods. It is the sixth most visited city in Europe.
Since
1992, the centre has been a United Nations World Heritage
Site – its ancient castle is the largest of its kind in the world.
King Vladislav II first bridged the Vltava River in
1170, building the Judith Bridge – that crumbled in 1342, but was later
replaced on the original foundations by the Charles Bridge, which stands to
this day.
In the
15th century Prague strengthened its role as a merchant city – in
the late 16th century it became the seat of Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolph II and the capital of European culture.
In 1689 a great fire devastated Prague, but that only served to spur
a renovation of the city.
The economic rise continued through the following
century and by 1771 the city had 80,000 inhabitants.
Many
of these were merchants who, together with noblemen of German, Spanish and
Italian origin, enriched the city with a host of palaces, churches and gardens.
The
armistice that ended World War I created Czechoslovakia. Prague was chosen as
its capital and the castle as the seat of its president. Prague was a thriving city
with highly developed industry. By 1930 the population had risen to 850,000.
In March 1939 Hitler ordered Germany's army into the
city and from the castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia to be a German
protectorate. Three years later Prague was witness to the assassination of a powerful Nazi – Reinhard Heydrich – for whom Hitler exacted a bloody reprisal.
Towards
the end of the war the city suffered bombing raids by the United States Air
Force, killing over 1,000 people and destroying hundreds of historical
landmarks.
Prague
revolted against Nazi occupation in May 1945, but four days later the Soviet
Army entered the city. In the aftermath of the war, most of Prague’s indigenous
Germans either fled or was expelled.
Prague was a city in the
military and political control of the Soviet Union, but since the fall of the Iron Curtain it has
become one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations.
It boasts
one of the world's most varied collections of architecture, from Baroque and Renaissance to Art Nouveau and Cubist.
Prague’s
gross domestic product per capita is more than double that of the Czech
Republic as a whole, at 33,784 (purchasing power parity) – 157.1 per cent of
the EU average, making it one of the 12 richest EU regions.
The
city is home to the European headquarters of many international companies.
Since the late 1990s, Prague has become a popular location for international film
productions, including Hollywood blockbusters Mission Impossible and Blade II.
A combination of stunning architecture, reasonable cost and an existing motion
picture infrastructure continues to be highly attractive.
Prague enjoys an
integrated transport system including a metro with 54 stations; a tram network;
buses; a funicular to Petrin Hill with its Eiffel Tower look-alike; and three
ferries.
All the services are run by a single company and have common ticketing.
There is also a commuter rail network serving the metropolitan hinterland.
The
city is the hub of the Czech railway system, with services to all parts of the country
and abroad. Prague has two international railway stations.
Ruzyne
international is the biggest airport in the Czech Republic and one of the
busiest in central and eastern Europe. It is the centre of operations for Czech
Airlines and for low-cost carriers Sky Europe and Smart Wings.
There
are hundreds of concert halls, galleries and cinemas in the city. Prague hosts
international music festivals, including one each in spring and autumn and another
that's specific to the organ.
It
also hosts a number of annual film festivals, a writers’ festival and ones
devoted to fringe activities and Roma culture.
Prague boasts the second-largest sports stadium in
the world. The city is the venue for many sports events, including an
international marathon, world hockey and UEFA league and cup soccer matches
featuring Slavia Prague and Sparta Prague.
Pictures (top to bottom):
FAIRY TALE: the city by night with the castle looking over it. ANCIENT CROSSING: the Charles Bridge for pedestrians only. MAIN STREAM: the country's longest river, the Vlatava, passes through the city. FINE DESIGN: the Dancing House is one example of the city's wide range of architecture. FAST TRAIN: one of the city's modern Metro stations. SPORTING LIFE: Eden Stadium is the home of UEFA soccer side Slavia Prague.
New paragraph
SLEC is sponsored by HSBC - the world's local bank
SOFIA is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Bulgaria. It has a population in excess of 1.2 million, making it the 14th largest city in the European Union.
Public transport is well-developed, reliable and important to the
city's economy - a mixture of underground trains (Serdika station is pictured left), buses, trams and
trolleybuses, and more than 15,000 licensed taxis.
Plovdiv is the venue for a number of annual economic and
cultural events such as the International Fair. 
During the period of socialist control the city's economy
expanded rapidly, dominated by heavy industry - it still produces lead and
zinc, heavy machinery, electronics, commercial vehicles, chemicals and cosmetics.
Around two thirds of the citizens have specialized secondary
or higher education – that percentage has increased since 1992. The city has six
universities and a number of state and private colleges.
BARBADOS is an independent nation in the western Atlantic Ocean. It lies in the southern Caribbean region; part of the Lesser Antilles island-chain.
JAMAICA is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres (146 miles) in length and as much as 80 kilometres (50m) in width situated in the Caribbean Sea.
THE REPUBLIC of Trinidad and Tobago is a group of 23 islands in the southern Caribbean, lying north-east of Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles.
Prague
is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe with examples from all major
architectural periods. It is the sixth most visited city in Europe.
In the
15th century Prague strengthened its role as a merchant city – in
the late 16th century it became the seat of Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolph II and the capital of European culture.
The
armistice that ended World War I created Czechoslovakia. Prague was chosen as
its capital and the castle as the seat of its president. Prague was a thriving city
with highly developed industry. By 1930 the population had risen to 850,000.
It boasts
one of the world's most varied collections of architecture, from Baroque and Renaissance to Art Nouveau and Cubist.
Prague enjoys an
integrated transport system including a metro with 54 stations; a tram network;
buses; a funicular to Petrin Hill with its Eiffel Tower look-alike; and three
ferries. 
There
are hundreds of concert halls, galleries and cinemas in the city. Prague hosts
international music festivals, including one each in spring and autumn and another
that's specific to the organ.