Companies complain about unfulfillable demands made by their Chinese counterparties

The Chairman of the Management Board of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce (BCC) Dobri Mitrev met with the newly appointed Bulgarian Ambassador to China Andrey Tehov. The meeting was also attended by Hristina Kasparian - director of "International Economic Cooperation" at BCC, the Chamber announced on its website.

Mitrev informed that after a poll among the BCC members, the prevailing opinion of the enterprises is that trade relations with China are far from balanced due to objective political reasons. The representation of Bulgaria on the Chinese market is also far from optimal. Bulgaria's presence at major trade fairs in China should be completely reconsidered. For Bulgarian companies, it is important to position ourselves on topics related to sectors such as green energy, electric cars, specific food products that can hardly be duplicated by China.

According to feedback from companies that have tried to enter the Chinese market, Chinese counterparties have demands that cannot be met - for example, for a company to send production data that is a trade secret. The cases in which the Chinese counterparties have requested detailed documentation for the entire supply chain of the respective company are not isolated either, BTA reported.

In the past year 2022, bilateral trade between the two countries reached 3.243 billion euros, which is an increase of nearly 20 percent compared to 2021. The trade balance for 2022 amounts to 2.421 billion euros. This is an increase of 2.4 times compared to 2021, when it was 996.4 million euros. Bulgaria's import from China for 2022 amounts to 3.2 billion, which is an increase of 1.5 times, and Bulgaria's export to China for the past year is 788.4 million, which is a decrease of 1.4 times (about 30 percent) compared to 2021 (1.123 billion euros).

Bulgaria's exports to China are mainly pulp and other solid residues; copper ores and their concentrates; refined copper and copper alloys; corn; sunflower seeds; lead ores and their concentrates; electronic integrated circuits and copper waste and scrap. In the case of imported goods from China for the Bulgarian market, the following prevail: photovoltaic cells; wheelchair parts and accessories; air conditioning machines and apparatus; animal, vegetable and microbial fats and oils; lithium-ion electric batteries; printed circuit boards; toys on wheels; antibiotics; biodiesel and blends of biodiesel, etc.

"Bulgaria is the second country in the world to recognize the People's Republic of China, and I believe that Chinese business has not only not forgotten this, but also still has extremely warm feelings towards our country. Bulgaria is a sought-after partner, but there are great difficulties in terms of exports us for China. These difficulties are caused by the impossibility of fulfilling large volumes on our side, expensive transport, difficulties in logistics, regulations, even in the way of doing business we have big differences", said Dobri Mitrev during the meeting.

During the meeting, the need to restore the Office for Trade and Economic Affairs (OTEA) in China was also discussed, as well as the possibility of easing the mutual exchange of goods based on the declaration signed in 2019 on the establishment of a strategic partnership between Bulgaria and China, under which the signatories the presidents Rumen Radev and Xi Jinping have passed away.

"My visit to BCC today was to inform myself about the views of the Bulgarian nationally representative employers' organizations before I left for Beijing and to make sure that for you, as well as for me, it is most important that Bulgaria makes its own decisions dictated by an economic assessment, in favor of the Bulgarian economy and always in search of balance. I see that we have the same opinion here. Although from different parts of the world, we will work for the same thing, and I hope for your active cooperation," said the newly appointed Bulgarian Ambassador Andrey Tehov.

Andrey Tehov was appointed by Decree No. 42 as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Bulgaria to China with headquarters in Beijing. He has already led the missions of Bulgaria in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia.