Survey of key GI players within Europe - EC GI & GIS Portal

The Cadastre Agency provides administrative data for the whole territory, with accuracy 1:5000 and
smaller. It also provides administrative data to EuroGeographics for inclusion in the SABE product.
Other key agencies are the Military Topographic Service of the Ministry of Defence, which provides
topographic data at 1:25,000 scale and lower, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the
National Statistical Office. All organisations (except Military Topographic Service) collecting GI have to
follow the regulations issued by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works.
The Ministry of Defence with its Military Topographic Service (MTS) originally carried out all
cartographic and geodetic works in Bulgaria. In 1952, some of the functions of the Military
Topographic Service were transferred to the then department of Geodesy and Cadastre of the Ministry
of Building (now Ministry of Regional Development), by Decree of the Council of Ministries. Today, the
main tasks of the MTS are firstly cartography and the production of topographic maps of scale 1:25k,
1:50k, 1:100k, 1:200k, 1:500k and 1:1Million, and secondly the maintenance of the State geodetic
network of the classes I, II, III, and IV. The products of the MTS include topographic maps in the
scales 1:25k – 1:1Million, thematic maps and photo-documents, urban plans, astronomic and geodetic
data, and military-geographic descriptions etc. The MTS provides topographic data principally to the
Army but also to other organisations. GIS is now used by MTS to provide the Bulgarian Army,
government institutions, the state economy and private companies with digital geographic products
and information.
The Ministry of Environment and Water (www.moew.government.bg) create and maintain
hydrography, watershed and other environmental medium scale thematic datasets, while the Ministry
of Agriculture and Forestry (www.mzgar.government.bg/) and The National Statistical Institute
(NSI) (www.nsi.bg/Index_e.htm ) also hold, maintain, and provide digital data. The NSI provides
demographic data on national, regional and local level, both in analogue and digital form.
The main private sector players in Bulgaria are ESRI. Datecs Ltd, DataMap Europe Ltd, and
Geomatics Ltd. ESRI-Bulgaria's (www.esribulgaria.com) customers are primarily governmental
institutions including the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Regional
Development and Construction, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, National Statistical
Institute, Bulgarian Telecom, and many others. Some of ESRI-Bulgaria's biggest customers among
private companies are in the field of telecommunications. Other major clients are large municipalities
including Sofia, Varna, and Burgas 6 .
Datecs Ltd (http://www.datecs.bg) was founded in 1990 by a group of researchers from the Institute
of Applied Cybernetics in the Bulgarian Academy of Science. DATECS is a private corporation with a
total workforce of over 200 employees. DATECS works in a number of IT areas and provides a range
of GIS & mapping services. Its GIS Centre is an Intergraph provider, a MapInfo Authorised Partner
and specialises in digital cartography, typology building, thematic mapping and all kind of databases
and Internet applications relevant to the geographical, geological and demographic sectors. A
particular speciality is its use of Cyrillic software. In 1997, Microsoft purchased a Datecs license for
the distribution of the Cyrillic spelling and hyphenation software product - Flex Word.
DataMap Ltd (www.datamap-bg.com/bul) is another private company, offering data, maps and atlases,
and software solutions for a range of GI applications including vehicle routing and LBS.
Geomatics Ltd is a private Bulgarian company which was founded in 2000 from a team of highly
qualified specialists working in the fields of geodesy, GIS and GPS technologies. The company is
entirely devoted to collection, processing and analysing of digital information and implementation of
GIS. The company’s activities include GIS Implementation, GIS database design, data automation
and Import/Export control, consultant support for different projections and coordinate systems
conversion, GPS fleet management solutions, GPS technology location services and consultancy for
digital data collection, processing and analysis. Geomatics has an ESRI development license and has
distribution rights for Military Topographic Service GI products, mainly 1:25k to 1:1 Million.
Although Bulgaria does not have a national GI association the Technical University of Sofia
(http://www.tu-sofia.bg/) plays an important role through its activities and international collaboration in
raising awareness and bringing together interested parties. It also assumes the role of the GISIG
national secretariat for Bulgaria and for the neighbouring countries. In this context it could be ranked
amongst the “key players”.
6
ESRI Press Release, Mar 2001, http://www.esri.com/news/releases/01_1qtr/esri-bulgaria.html
Survey of key GI players within Europe Page 14