Bulgaria, Belgium interested in boosting trade, economic cooperation: officials

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and visiting Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders on Tuesday said their countries were interested in boosting bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

"Bulgaria is interested in deepening this cooperation," Borissov told Reynders, according to a press release issued by the Government Information Service.

Bulgaria aims to attract investment and actively involve Belgian companies in the realization of projects in infrastructure, energy, transport, environment, telecommunications and other fields, Borissov said.

During the meeting, Borissov and Reynders, who is also Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and European Affairs, discussed topics such as the partnership between Bulgaria and Belgium within the European Union (EU) and NATO, and the issue of migrants.

At a joint press conference, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov said this year Belgium was the second largest foreign investor in his country, and bilateral trade exceeded 1.5 billion euros (1.67 billion U.S. dollars).

Reynders reaffirmed Belgium had a lot of investment and trade with Bulgaria, which "we try to enhance."

However, he said that Belgium wants to see some reforms in Bulgaria in the next few months and years particularly in the fight against corruption.

He said he followed the discussion in the Bulgarian Parliament about corruption, and for Belgium "it is quite important to see that it is possible to make some progress on that."

On Monday, a group of 14 ambassadors of EU countries including Belgium, urged Bulgaria to adopt the law against high level corruption as soon as possible.

In a joint statement issued five days after the country's Parliament refused to adopt the bill, the diplomats said "the rejection without further parliamentary discussion of the initial text proposed by the government sends a negative signal in the frame of the fight against corruption." Endit