Companies from the People’s Republic of China have made clear their interest not only in building and managing an industrial zone in Bulgaria, but also in leasing a Bulgarian airport.

This was announced by Bulgaria’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov in Sofia Monday during a forum entitled “Government and Business: Common Efforts for Accelerated Investment 2010-2011”.

Traikov was recently on a week-long visit to China where he met with a number of representatives of the Chinese authorities and large industrial companies including Jin Yonghui, the Director General of the Department of Commerce of Zhejiang Province; Zhao Hongzhu, the secretary of the CPC Zhejiang committee, and a member of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and PRC Commerce Minister Chen Deming.

During his visit the Bulgarian Minister said he had generated interest with Chinese companies and authorities in setting up a joint industrial zone on 190 hectares of former army lands at Bozhurishte near Sofia.

“In China, we signed an agreemend with the Zhejiang Province. This is a province of 50 million people, and we would like to commit its authorities to the future industrial zone near Bozhurishte because they had expressed interest in an industrial zone near Sofia,” Traikov announced on Monday.

He added that a delegation of the InvestBulgaria Agency, a government body in charge of relations with foreign investors, and of the National Company “Industrial Zones” will be visiting China in the fall for concrete talks with Chinese companies for the building of the future industrial park at Bozhurishte.

“Our representatives will be talking with two types of companies. The one type are companies that specialize in the management of industrial zones. I met with PRC’s Commerce Minister Chen Deming, who is a great specialist on the management of industrial zones. He himself has managed such a zone and was very interested in this matter. So these will be Chinese companies that can partner with Bulgaria’s National Company “Industrial Zones” in order for both sides to generate a profit from Bozhurishte. The others are Chinese companies that are already keen to become “clients” of the zone by building greenfield plants and logistics building,” Traikov explained.

He added that if a Chinese company is selected to partner with the Bulgarian state company “Industrial Zones” in the management of the Bozhurishte industrial part, it will probably provide some of the capital for the building of the new zone.

Bulgaria’s Economy Minister also announced that Chinese investors are considering a concession of a Bulgarian airport. He refused to specify which is the airport in question but said it could be used for importing Chinese goods into the EU.

“One third of all goods produced in China are exported through air cargo, and Bulgaria can get a share of this one third,” he said.

The Minister announced that the Bulgarian government was going to send 6 officials to the Shanghai Expo 2010 for three months at the cost of a total of BGN 50 000. They will be supposed to help out the representatives of the Plovdiv International Fair company running the Bulgarian pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.

The Bulgarian stand at the expo became notorious as the BGN 1.3 M allocated from the state turned out to be insufficient; Bulgaria had no representatives speaking Chinese at the world-class business event. Minister Traikov did not specify whether any of the six new officials to be sent to Shanghai speaks Chinese.

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