UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 7
October 17, 1996
Economist to return to Bulgaria on a Fulbright

     The ongoing association between the University of Delaware
and Sofia University in Bulgaria will get a new link this spring
when Kenneth Koford, economics, teaches economics there for a
year, beginning in February.
     This is a return trip for Koford, who taught there in 1991
and 1992 under a U.S. Agency for International Development grant
and carried out research on Bulgaria's transition economy in
1994.
     Since 1991, approximately 20 Bulgarians have come to
Delaware to undertake economics graduate study.
     Their educational experiences have had a positive effect,
Koford said. They appreciate the merits of Western economy and
have enhanced their careers so they are in demand for jobs in
business or as professors.
     Koford will be teaching undergraduate macro- and micro-
economics and industrial organization. Students at Sofia
University, which is the leading institution of learning in the
country, are bright, hardworking and lively, with a good
knowledge of English, he said.
     His grant also includes textbooks. Since a textbook there
costs the equivalent of an average month's salary, they are
valuable resources and are turned in for subsequent classes to
use.
     While Bulgaria is still in transition to becoming a Western
economy,  there are many healthy signs, Koford said. The shops in
Sofia are filled with goods; the retailing and service sectors
are more efficient. There now is a privately owned shipbuilding
yard, and the country has a healthy business, producing and
exporting clothing to western Europe and Turkey. Tourism is
mixed, with some ski and coastal resorts doing well, but
privatization has caused some confusion and problems that have to
be resolved, he said.
     A down side is the collapse of some banks, causing foreign
exchange crises, and there have been some faulty economic
decisions on the part of the government, Koford said.
     But the country is emerging from a police state into an open
society, and young people are eager to succeed in a modern market
economy, according to Koford.
                                              -Sue Swyers Moncure