OREANDA-NEWS. October 7, 2008. The 12th meeting of the Russian-Bulgarian inter-governmental commission on economic and scientific-technical cooperation will take place in Sofia on Oct 8–9 2008, Deputy Minister of Economy and Energy of Bulgaria Yavor Kuiumdjiev said during a press-conference today.

The Russian delegation will be led by Vice Premier Sergey Sobyanin, the Bulgarian delegation – by Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov.

The key topics of the meeting will be energy projects, liberalization of Russian-Bulgarian trade-economic relations, licensing of Russian weapon production in Bulgaria.

Kuiumdjiev said that Russia was among the four biggest trade partners of Bulgaria and the biggest exporter of goods into that country. He pointed to imbalance in the Russian-Bulgarian trade: in 2007 the Russian-Bulgarian trade turnover totaled \\$4.1bln wherein Russia’s share was \\$3.7bln while Bulgaria’s share is just \\$450mln.

A national Russian exhibition dedicated to the Year of Russia in Bulgaria will be taking place at Bulgarian Interexpocenter simultaneously with the meeting. The commercial representative of Russia to Bulgaria Alexander Tomilov says that 12 Russian regions, Ministry of Transport of Russia, the Russian Agency on Science and Innovations and Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation will present their products during the exhibition. For almost 70% of the companies it will be the first entry into the Bulgarian market.