Bulgaria PM Heading for China with 7 Mins for China-CEE Summit

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has departed for a visit to China with seven ministers for a meeting with the country's leadership and officials from Central and Eastern European states.

The city of Suzhou in Eastern China is due to host the Fourth leaders' meeting of China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries on November 24-25.

The summit, combined with an economic forum, is aimed at discussing possibilities to further deepen cooperation.

Beijing earlier announced it would set aside a USD 10 B "credit line" for projects in infrastructure, green economy, and technology that China would like to carry out joinly with CEE states.

Countries taking part are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Republic of Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Bulgaria's delegation includes Deputy PM for economic policy Tomislav Donchev, Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, Regional Development Minister Lilyana Pavlova, Agriculture Minister Desislava Taneva, Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski, and Economy Minister Bozhidar Lukarski, the government press office has said.

In an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio, Mitov said two of the issues discussed between Sofia and Beijing would be prospects to boost trade exchange to USD 2 B a year and a surge in imports of Bulgarian agricultural goods into China.

He added the main goal was to "rationalize economic relations among countries [taking part in] the forum based on mutual interest.

"The initiative is an important trade mechanism to give incentives to our economic ties to China, given that BRICS cannot fulfill [the needs of] the...