Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism, Traicho Traikov, is on a formal visit is Israel Tuesday.

Traikov has been invited to Tel Aviv by his counterpart, Israel’s Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He is accompanied by representatives of Bulgarian firms dealing with energy, IT, food production, tourism, marketing consulting, infrastructure engineering.

In Tel Aviv, Traikov is going to open a joint business forum with the participation of 20 Bulgarian and 50 Israeli companies organized by the Federation of Israeli Commerce Chambers and the Executive Agency for encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises.

In addition to Ben-Eliezer, Traikov is also going to meet with Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructure, Uzi Landau, and Ori Yogev, Chair of the Consultative Committee of the National Economic Council of the Israeli government.

According to data of the Bulgarian Economy Ministry, Bulgarian-Israeli trade amounted to USD 124.6 M, with a positive USD 14.6 M balance for Israel; this is the first time in ten years the bilateral trade balance was negative for Bulgaria.

Israeli investments in Bulgaria amounted to EUR 29.4 M in 2008, and EUR 4.7 M in the first half of 2009.

In 2009, Bulgaria was visited by 106 356 Israeli tourists, while 8 568 Bulgarians visited Israel.