China

China, Bulgaria deepen friendship with meeting

By Kelly Chung Dawson (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-24 11:24

NEW YORK - Premier Wen Jiabao and Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov met on Thursday in New York following Wen's speech at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Earlier in the week, Borisov had said that his scheduled meeting with Wen would be the most important of Bulgaria's meetings during the Millennium Development Goals summit.

"I am really hopeful with respect to the meeting with my colleague Wen Jiabao here," Borisov said. Referring to the EU Council's announcement last week that China would be a strategic partner of the union, he said that Bulgaria was already ahead of the curve.

"We are already ahead in our meetings with the Chinese, and in our investment plans," he said. "We want to see China establish high-tech zones in Bulgaria, a permanent technology expo for Europe, and allow them to utilize the potential of the Bulgarian ports. Our ports are some of the most attractive ones in the EU."

Borisov also held talks with World Bank President Robert Zoellick, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and UN General Assembly Chair Joseph Deiss.

Bulgaria has openly courted Chinese investors in recent months, and in early September, President Georgi Parvanov met with Wang Yang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Guangdong provincial committee, to discuss opportunities for Chinese investment in the Bulgarian nuclear energy sector.

During that meeting, Parvanov reiterated Bulgaria's 2009 announcement that the country intended to expand economic cooperation and investment with China. Bulgarian political forces are united in their belief that developing relations with China would be beneficial, Parvanov said.

He cited easy tax laws, qualified workers and exceptional business conditions as reasons China should consider Bulgaria. The two nations also recently announced that they would work together on the Bozhurishte Industrial Zone, a business zone managed jointly by Chinese and Bulgarian partners and occupied primarily by Chinese companies.

The two countries have enjoyed a 60-year bilateral friendship that began with Bulgaria's acknowledgement of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the second country in the world to do so.

China Daily