Bulgaria has become a favourite business partner for its Balkan neighbours after joining the European Union (EU) in January 2007.
The country was most popular with those neighbours that are still in the waiting list to join the Union, Luxembourg-based newspaper New Europe said on October 15.

The newspaper pointed to some major deals, announced in the beginning of October, which showed that Serbian, Macedonian and Turkish business were concentrating on investing in ventures with Bulgarian partners. 
Among the mentioned deals is the one of the Bulgarian company Brikel, which made a bid for the purchase of the Serbian manufacturer of fixture and packaging, FOPA Vladichin Han. Bril was also seen as a potential buyer of the Delicious plant of semi-conductors. Earlier this year Brikel bought Trial, the second biggest producer of tires in Serbia, for 12 million euro.

The recent CeBit Bilism Eurasia 2007 exhibition of information technologies in Istanbul announced that Bulgarian software company ORAK Engineering signed an agreement to provide software to Turkish companies. ORAK was to implant their software systems in a large hotel complex in Antalya, in a chain of Turkish oil stations and more than 300 sportswear shops as well.

A serious breakthrough abroad was made by a number of Bulgarian financial institutions, New Europe said.
As the Sofia Echo reported earlier, Central Co-operative Bank was chosen successful buyer for a majority stake in Post Bank of Skopje from Eurostandard Bank.