LUKoil Neftochim is the largest Bulgarian company, ranking 29th in Central and Eastern Europe, according to the recently published Deloitte’s CE Top 500 list.

The Deloitte Central Europe Top 500 charts companies’ progress in the region, which stretches from the Adriatic to the Baltic and the Black seas and contains a raft of countries, all of which have either already joined the European Union or are at various stages of the EU accession process.

The Deloitte report advises that reform policies and, above all, privatization, must be pursued by governments in Central Europe. Only then will the region be able to maintain its impressive five percent growth rates that far outpace western Europe’s economic performance and to catch up the countries in western Europe.

The CE Top 500 ranking charts the fortunes of the largest 500 companies in the region by revenue, profits, employment and capitalization.

The ranking shows little change from the previous year with PKN Orlen, Poland’s oil refiner and petroleum distributor, still at the top of the list with other energy companies including MOL of Hungary and CEZ of the Czech Republic close by.

The other top slots are filled by automobile manufacturers led by the Volkswagen owned Skoda from the Czech Republic followed by Audi in Hungary and Volkswagen’s own subsidiary in Slovakia.

Telekomunikacja Polska, the telecommunications provider from Poland is the only non-energy related, non-auto company in the region’s top 10.

The biggest foreign investors by revenue are Volkswagen, the auto manufacturer, Arcelor Mittal, the multinational steel group, and Metro, the retailer. CEZ, the Czech energy giant leads the market capitalization ranking followed by two banks in Poland, Pekao SA, and PKO BP.

Thirteen Bulgarian companies are also included in the CE Top 500 list, six of them are in the energy sector, three – in the industrial one, another three in the “Technologies, Media and Telecommunications” sector of and one in the trade and business sector.

The top ten Bulgarian companies with their ranking are: Lukoil Neftochim (29), Lukoil Bulgaria (71), NEK (124), Cumerio Med (142), Petrol (258), Mobiltel (285), OMV (328), BTC (363), Kremikovtsi (381), Cez Electro (425).