Manama: Qatar plans to invest 100 million euros in Bulgaria, Prime Minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani said. The money will be invested in three major Bulgarian sectors - agriculture, tourism and infrastructure - and a Qatari team of experts in the three fields as well as in energy will visit Bulgaria within a month to discuss cooperation ahead of a visit to Sofia by the prime minister, QNA said.

At a meeting with Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Bulgarian and Qatari businessmen, Shaikh Hamad said that Sofia should stage an exhibition for Bulgarian products in Qatar and stressed that Bulgarian companies have a chance to compete in Qatar's private and public sectors.

"As you know, all our tenders are open and completely transparent. All companies can participate," he said on Wednesday. Bulgarian media reported that Borisov appreciated the interest of the Qatari government in investing in infrastructure projects such as airports, highways and services, "especially given that this interest was expressed against the background of the global financial and economic crisis."

 

A Bulgarian government statement following the meeting said that opportunities for Qatari investments in areas such as agriculture, tourism, spa and mineral springs had been outlined, The Sofia Echo reported.

 

Follow-up discussions covered projects that included linking Bulgaria and Turkey in the field of energy and a liquefied natural gas project.

 

Borisov said that the Bulgarian side had proposed Qatar invest in a number of infrastructure projects such as renovation of Balchik airport and through a public - private partnership involving Qatar companies in building the Black Sea motorway between Bourgas and Varna, The Sofia Echo said.

 

The two countries have started working on a framework agreement to create opportunities for Qatari investments to enter Bulgaria, Nikolay Mladenov, Bulgaria's foreign minister, said.

 

The investment framework agreement was proposed by Shaikh Hamad in order to fix the framework of Qatar's initial investments in Bulgaria, Mladenov said, quoted by Sofia News Agency.

 

The minister said that he expected a framework agreement between the two countries to be signed by May 2012.