Meetings with Companies from Qingdao, China Held at BCCI
Chinese business delegation from the city of Quindao, Shandong Province visited BCCI on 1 June 2011. Mr. Tsvetan Simeonov, President of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed the Chinese companies, which work in the field of light industry. He invited them to use any opportunity for cooperation with Bulgarian partners and to invest in our county. BCCI’s President noted that the ports in Varna and Bourgas are the two EU ports closest to Asia and can be used by Chinese companies as a gateway to the Community.
The leader of the Chinese delegation Mr. Lou Weilie, Deputy Director General of the Bureau of Commerce in Qingdao provided information about the city and its region, with population over 8.8 million people. Foreign trade in the region amounts to USD 56 billion and foreign investments to USD 2.6 billion. In 2010 trade between Qingdao and Bulgaria amounted to USD 17 million. Quingdao port has the 7th largest cargo throughput in the world. There are over 10 000 companies in the city and the region conducting international trade.
Mr. Lu Yongming, Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to Bulgaria also greeted the participants in the forum, encouraging them to establish direct relations with each other and to use the economic potential of Quingdao – a coastal city open to the world, which has had an economic growth of over 10 % for 10 years.
The participants in the meeting got acquainted with the business conditions and investment climate in our country. Mr. Julian Balchev, representative of InvestBulgaria Agency said that a joint Bulgarian-Chinese company will start producing automobiles in Lovech this year.
The forum continued with bilateral meetings, in which representatives of 25 Bulgarian companies took part.