“Bulgaria is interested in strengthening of the economic cooperation with Finland.” This was announced by the Deputy Minister of the Economy Lyuben Petrov during a meeting with MattiAntonen, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and responsible for Foreign Economic Cooperation of Finland. “There are many opportunities to expand and deepen of the trade and economic relations between the two countries. Volumes achieved in our bilateral trade and investments are far from their full potential, “said Deputy Minister Petrov.
“We are interested in intensification of the trade, attracting of strategic investments and active participation of the Finnish companies in the realization of projects with pan-European and national importance, connected with the infrastructure, energetic, transport, environment, telecommunications,” said Deputy Minister Petrov. Potential exists and in traditionally strong for Bulgaria sectors such as the food industry, agriculture, wine production, textile and footwear industry, mechanical engineering. According to Deputy Minister Petrov good opportunities provide and relatively new, but growing very rapidly sectors of the Bulgarian economy as ICT and the outsourcing of business processes, which create high added value. He pointed out that the promotion namely of the high-tech sectors in our economy is a priority in the conducted by the Bulgarian government policy.
Deputy Minister Petrov noted also, that the potential for expansion of the cooperation between businesses of the two countries are in the areas of researches, technologies and innovations and the development of joint projects. Valuable for Bulgaria would be the Finland experience in the interaction between science and business, and application of the scientific achievements and researches in the real economy. There is potential and through the promotion of small and medium enterprises and inter-firm cooperation.
From his side Deputy Minister Antonen indicated that his country is interested in expanding of the cooperation with Bulgaria in the sectors of energetic, e-governance and agriculture. He added that improving our economic relations can be achieved in the context of opportunities for free movement of people, goods, capital and services, arising from the membership of both countries in the European Union.
According to BNB data the accumulated foreign direct investment in Bulgaria from Finland for the period 2001-2015 amounts to 68.2 mln. Euros. Bilateral trade is volatile, with a strong negative balance for Bulgaria, which however, since 2009, gradually decreased until 2012, when it began to grow again. In 2015, the trend is for a slight decrease of visible trade, export and increase of import. Leading position in the Bulgarian export to Finland borrow copper ores, sunflower seeds, medicines, and also engineering products and products of the metals industry. The Bulgarian import from Finland in its main part is formed from steel products, various kinds of paper and paper derivatives, transport equipment.