Bulgarian Minister of Economy Bozhidar Lukarski and the Minister for Enterprise and Innovation of Sweden Mikael Damberg have agreed on the need to step up promotion of Bulgarian companies to Swedish partners and encouraging direct contacts between entrepreneurs from the two countries, the Economy Ministry in Sofia said.
Bulgarian businesses are faced with a considerable shortage of information about the opportunities offered by the Swedish market which is one of the main obstacles to increasing the presence of Bulgarian companies there, particularly of those which have significant export potential, Lukarski said during a working visit to Sweden, according to Economy Ministry.
Lukarski said that Bulgaria should concentrate its efforts on targeting sectors of the Swedish economy in which Bulgarian businesses have a competitive edge such as machine building, electronics and electrical engineering, food industry and the production of wine and spirits, furniture, textile and ICT.
A Bulgarian-Swedish business forum in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) will be held in Gothenburg in October as part of a new campaign to encourage B2B contacts between the two countries, it emerged on Tuesday.
Bulgaria’s deficit in trade with Sweden decreased to EUR 10M last year as exports rose faster than imports.
Bulgaria’s exports to Sweden increased by 28.9%, reaching EUR 139.6M, while imports grew by 2.5%, reaching EUR 149.6M, the Economy Ministry said.
Bilateral trade turnover increased by 13.7% last year, reaching EUR 289.2M, or 0.6% of Bulgaria’s total trade turnover.