Company leaders from Bulgaria and Macedonia gather Monday at a business forum in Bulgarian capital Sofia. Macedonia's Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski and Economy Minister Iliya Filipovski will lead a delegation of thirty Macedonian company leaders. Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov and State Administration Minister Dimitar Kalchev will also join the event.

The forum aims to advance business cooperation between the two countries, Bulgarian coordinators of the meeting said. Participants will work for increasing the pace of trade between Bulgaria and Macedonia and
analyse opportunities for foreign investments in the two countries.

Company leaders will also be able to hold individual discussions with each other.

The second session of the joint economic forum of the two states is convened by the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Bulgarian Industrial Association.

Branko Crvenkovski is scheduled to meet today President Parvanov and parliamentary spokesman Ognyan Gerdzhikov. Days before the visit of Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski President Parvanov said relations between the two countries have never been better.

Macedonia-Bulgaria relations remain friendly despite the two resent accidents, Crvenkovski said when he arrived in Bulgaria Sunday.

In early May a Skopje court ordered a Bulgarian woman to pay a fine of 10,000 denars after she said publicly that there is no Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and that Macedonia have existed as a state for ten years. Bulgarian Anton Spasov was beaten by Macedonian policemen and expelled from the country mid-June after he said he was Bulgarian in a quarrel with his Skopje neighbors.