A Bavarian investor is showing interest in the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant but the talks, held at business level, are confidential, journalists were told by Martin Gussmann, Director of Southeast and Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States Department at the Bavarian State Ministry of Economy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technologies.

Bulgaria has contacted representatives of Bavaria and when the time comes, there will be information; so far the talks have been held without the participation of the Bavarian Ministry, Grossmann said.

For the first time the Bavarian State Ministry of Economy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technologies will not have a pavilion at the Plovdiv Fair although it has been participating in it for the past 16 years, said Mitko Vassilev, CEO of the German-Bulgarian Chamber and representative of Bavaria for Bulgaria. The reason is the strong competition provided by other international fairs and the fact that the service Plovdiv Fair offers is expensive.

"From the point of view of our Ministry, by taking part in such fairs we seek to establish new contacts between businesses, and there already are good partnerships established between Bulgarian and Bavarian companies," Grossmann said. In his words, Bavarian companies may participate in the fair in Plovdiv without support from the government.

The Bavarian industry is interested in conducting activities in Bulgaria that involve the absorption of EU funds; the problem is that the tenders for choosing contractors are not transparent, Grossmann said. According to him, the winner is always the tenderer offering the lowest price, which is not the best practice as the low price affects negatively the quality. Contractors for projects in Bulgaria are often companies from Turkey, China, etc. but the quality they provide is not always at the level of that provided by German companies.

Taking a question, Grossmann said the German market will open to Bulgarian job seekers in 2013-2014 at the earliest since according to the EU rules, this can happen seven years after the accession of the respective new member state. Due to the financial crisis, measures protecting the German labour market are still applied and it may remain closed to Bulgarians for another two years after the expiration of the fixed seven-year period, Grossmann said.

Source: BTA