UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 24, Page 8
March 19, 1992
Business-American style

     One year ago, Anna Apostolova began a small import/export partnership
that she would like to expand. She and her partner are also thinking about
starting a bakery and possibly a meat processing plant.
     Until a few years ago, Apostolova's enterprise would have constituted
treason. Anna is Bulgarian and one of a new breed of entrepreneurs grappling
with the complexities of capitalism in a world created for communism.
     She is one of 15 Bulgarian entrepreneurs and managers who will spend six
weeks at the University and two weeks with U.S. corporations improving their
market economy skills and their command of English.
     The University's College of Business and Economics Spring International
Business Institute (SIBI), which began March 9, is a by-product of the
college's summer economics and English program for international students and
a $1.5 million grant from the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) to create and implement management training and economics
education in Bulgaria.
     The University's USAID program in Bulgaria is only halfway through its
first year and, so far, 600 people have have been instructed in one or more
courses. The USAID's goal is to expose 1,000 Bulgarian economics teachers,
policy makers, business managers and journalists per year to the concepts and
practical applications of a market economy. The University training is
designed to serve as a catalyst for economic reform.
     The 15 SIBI participants arrived in the United States March 7 and began
formal activities on March 9 with an orientation to the eight-week program
and to the campus.
     In addition to business and economics seminars and English  classes,
students will shop at Christiana Mall, visit Wilmington Trust Bank, attend a
performance of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and see the Philadelphia
Flyers, visit Baltimore's Inner Harbor, New York City and Washington, D.C.,
and participate in a trade and investment workshop with business
representatives.
     After a two-week internship with U.S. companies, the 15 business
professionals will return to the University and to their host families. They
leave for Bulgaria on May 3.
     -Barbara Garrison