December 9, 2013

China has shown a strong interest in investing in Central and Eastern Europe's agro-industries, including the production of animal feeds.

Speaking after a summit of Chinese and Central and Eastern European leaders, Minister of Agriculture and Food, Dimitar Grekov said that the closer ties between Bulgaria and China could see Bulgaria become a hub for cooperation in agriculture under the Chinese initiative because it is a strong agricultural country and could enable China to gain a foothold in Europe. He pointed out that Bulgaria could become a hub for the collection of goods to be offered to the Chinese market.

Grekov said that the country's goal is to create joint ventures for animal feed processing and export the produced non-perishable goods to China, while ensuring they are tailored to the specific tastes and requirements of the Chinese market. Due to insufficiency of the production capacities at Bulgarian feed mills to meet the demands of China, investment would be needed in the sector and new feed mills are needed to be built.