President Parvanov Urges Irish Business to Invest in Bulgaria

The Irish business community has a year and some months to make a breakthrough on the Bulgarian market, said Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov after a lunch with Irish businessmen in Dublin. Ireland could use Bulgaria as a gate for other countries of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Ukraine and CIS, he pointed out. Fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables are of much higher quality in Bulgaria compared with the produce of its neighbors, Parvanov said. In Southeastern Europe Bulgaria boasts the most dynamic market for Irish whiskey. I hope to see Ireland as a thriving market for Bulgarian red wines, he added.

The agenda of the President's talk with Prime Minister of Ireland Bertie Ahern was one of Bulgaria's key priorities - the development of infrastructure. Bulgaria is a power-engineering center in the Balkans; this is a sector where Bulgaria will make serious investments in the future. We maintain good traditions in high technologies and have qualified personnel in this sphere. The Irish investors could use these facts to their benefit, the President said further.
Talking with the journalists, Parvanov said that the coming year will be decisive for the fair outcome of the trial against the Bulgarian nurses in Libya.