China has expressed a strong interest in investing into agro-industries, including the production of animal feeds, in Central and Eastern Europe.
Speaking after a summit of Chinese and Central and Eastern European leaders, Minister of Agriculture and Food, Prof. Dimitar Grekov said that the closer ties between Bulgaria and China, could 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. Minister Grekov also said that rather than export raw materials, Bulgaria'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.
Production capacities at Bulgarian feed mills are currently insufficient to meet the demands of China, so investment would be needed in the sector and new feed mills would need to be built.