7 † Corresponding author © 2016 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIES AND THE FOREIGN TRA RELATIONS BETWEEN UKRAINE AND BULGARIA (IN THE PERIOD 2005-20 Dragomir Angelov Iliev 1 --- Yordan Iliev Neykov 2 † 1,2 PhD D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics – Svishtov, Bulgaria, Faculty of Management and Marketing ABSTRACT The paper presents an analysis of the trends in the national economies of Bulgaria and Ukraine based on general macroeconomic indicators. An emphasis is put on the foreign trade between the two countries in the context of the global economic crisis and the crisis related to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The analysis of the foreign trade between Bulgaria and Ukraine covers the main commodity groups in terms of their importance for the two economies. Keywords: Volume of trade, Economic crisis, Regional integration, Geopolitical conflicts, Bulgaria, Ukraine. JEL Classification: F14, F19. Contribution/ Originality The paper's core contribution is the study of the changes in the trade flows between Bulgaria and Ukraine within the context of the ongoing economic and geopolitical changes. The focus of the study is the impact of the various crises on trade flows and the basic macro-economic indicators of the investigated countries. 1. INTRODUCTION The economies of Bulgaria and Ukraine in the period under consideration developed in a dynamic external and internal environment, including the transition from planned to free-market economy, the occurrence of a number of internal economic and social crises, changes in the process of their accession to the European Union (EU) and the effects of the global economic crisis. All these factors affected the transformation of the economies of the two countries as well as their bilateral trade. This paper aims to outline the main trends of their economic development and especially their foreign trade relations both in terms of their total volumes of import and export and the volume of trade between Bulgaria and Ukraine. In this respect the main objective of this study is to determine the changes in the foreign trade structure and the volume of trade Journal of Empirical Studies 2016 Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 7-20 ISSN(e): 2312-6248 ISSN(p): 2312-623X DOI: 10.18488/journal.66/2016.3.1/66.1.7.20 © 2016 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved