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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Europe: Where to do business
The main task of the Cushman & Wakefield' s report is to show where is better to do business in Europe. The outcome of the study represents a cumulative index where different elements are taken as relevant. These 12 elements are the following: access to the market, qualified personnel, urban transportation network, telecommunications systems, cost of labor, relationship of the state to business, cost of office space, territorial access of office space, language, long-distance transportation network, air quality and general quality of life. As we can see, some of these variables, e.g. the cost of labor or the cost of office space, can be precisely measured. Others, e.g. the relations of the state to business, require more complex method of analysis and don't produce data with same kind of precision. The variable "qualified personnel" usually takes into account professional and educational background, two variables that cannot be easily compared across national borders. The general quality of life is far from being a universally accepted measure and may vary within large intervals. The language is something that cannot be changed and manipulated at will, but it also requires at least one basic assumption, that some languages are better suited for business than others. Regarding the variables, it's necessary for the project designers to explain why they have included these and not included other possible options, e.g. threat of terrorism or general level of criminal activity? Do they think these variables are completely irrelevant for doing business? There are also some problems with the design that we hope may be corrected in one of the next sequels of the report. First, 30 cities in a continent of more than 500 million is clearly too little. The project designers should be more detailed when explaining how they selected exactly these cities. Do they infer that anyone else is falling below these 30 cities? Or they have tried to make a sample of the different regions of Europe? In this case why some countries have been completely left outside the list? Second, mixing urban giants with relatively small cities can be misleading. Some places may offer better opportunities than others but may provide not enough space for large office expansion. Third, is the relative weight of all variables the same or some are more important than others? If the later is the case, then how the designers have calculated this relative weight? If the "cost of office space" is more important than the "air quality", how this may be measured? All these questions in no way underestimate the usefulness of the recent ranking presented by Cushman & Wakefield. They are intended to make the conclusions more clear and less subject to multiple and contradicting interpretations.
Best business cities in Europe --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Europe.
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