Abstract:

Bulgaria is an important country in the Balkans with an area of 110.912 km² and population of 7,1 million. After having gained full independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1908, the country experienced difficulties, and after the Second World War, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics put pressure on the country with a communist rule. Since this period onwards, Turkey’s trade relations with Bulgaria has not reached to the potential it deserves and to the desired levels for many years. With the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1991, the country approached Western countries and abandoned socialist rule. After 1991, there had been a significant increase in trade relations between Bulgaria and Turkey. With the inclusion of Bulgaria in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004 and the European Union in 2007, the commercial relations between the two countries have gained a new dimension. Bulgaria is one of the Balkan countries that has a significant Turkish population inherited from the Ottoman Empire. Consequently, the presence of the Turkish population in Bulgaria had been an important factor for the development of Bulgar-Turkish commercial relations. This study deals with the data regarding the ongoing import and export with Bulgaria between 1969 and 2016 which was acquired by Turkish Statistical Institute’s classification called Harmonized System on an interval basis.

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