The Bulgarian outsourcing sector is expected to account for 7.9% of the country's GDP in 2021, or 4 billion euro ($4.5 billion), according to a SeeNews report commissioned by the Bulgarian Outsourcing Associacion. Companies in the outsourcing sector contributed 4.8% of Bulgaria's GDP in 2017, up from 4.2% in 2016, figures from the report show. A total of 477 companies providing outsourcing services operated in Bulgaria in 2017. Of them, 244 were engaged in business process outsourcing (BPO) and 233 in information technology outsourcing (ITO).Companies in the sector employed 60,600 people full-time at the end of 2017, or 2.4% of all employees in the country. By 2021, this number is expected to exceed 79,000.The sector grew its revenue by an annual 18.2% to 2.1 million euro last year. However, the combined net profit of local outsourcing companies fell to 116.9 million euro in 2017 from 124.6 million euro the year before.BPO companies generated a larger portion of the sector's total revenue - 58%, but ITO companies accounted for a larger share of the revenue.