Warner Yuhua: The contacts with Bulgaria are of great importance for future economic cooperation between China and Europe

The contacts with Bulgaria are of great importance for future economic cooperation between China and Europe, and for us it is extremely important to develop them as possible. That said Senior Economic Expert of the Chinese Government Warner Yuhua during the organized by the InvestBulgaria Agency (IBA) public lecture on "The link between the existing format of cooperation with China 16 + 1 and the new Silk Road", which was held in Sofia University on 25 June. Warner Yuhua is Senior Economist, Executive Vice-President of High Tech Park Shanghai Zhangjiang Co., Ltd, Vice-Chairman of the Shanghai Association of Young Intellectuals and President of the Council of Foreign Investment Enterprises in Shanghai.

The lecture focused on the existing format of cooperation with China 16 + 1 and the Bulgarian participation. 16 + 1 format is an international initiative launched in November 2013 and aims to intensify the bilateral trade and investments between China and the 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia.

Warner Yuhua recalled the history of the emergence of the Silk Road, when two thousand years ago the peoples of Eurasia used a few routes for trade and cultural exchange, which link the major civilizations of Asia, Europe and Africa. At a later stage these routes were united under the common name Silk Road.

Nowadays, the Silk Road is defined as type of policy, whose main objective is to connect China with Central Asia, Russia and Europe. This "road" consists of two main destinations - the first one is from China through the South China Sea and India to Europe and the second one is from China through the South China Sea to the South Pacific. Among the priorities of this policy are political cooperation, integration and financial link between peoples, said Warner Yuhua.

The Chinese expert noted that the contacts with Bulgaria are of great importance for future economic cooperation between China and Europe. According to him, our peoples know very little about each other.

"That is why we visit Bulgaria, get acquainted with non-governmental organizations from the country and exchange experience with the Government and representatives of the Bulgarian business policy and make visits to China”, said Warner Yuhua.

"In China we have a saying - if you invest in our country you might fail and if you don’t invest - then you have already failed. My opinion is the same for Bulgaria and so I promote your country to investors", said the Chinese expert.