Last week an official visit of Nikolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian minister of Foreign Affairs, took place in Pakistan.

“Pakistan is a friendly country with which we want to develop economic, political and cultural cooperation. Minister Nikolay Mladenov summarize the significance of his visit to Islamabad – the first of its kind in the history of Bulgarian-Pakistani relations.  He also thanked the Pakistani government’s efforts to stabilize the region, which has higher costs, including expression in human casualties.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Yousaf Raza Gillani, also expressed his gratitude for Bulgaria’s support for flood victims at the end of last summer. He also confirmed that Bulgaria’s support for Pakistan’s exports to the EU was highly appreciated .  The parties agreed also to urge the import/export exchange between the two countries. This will boost the business and the travel of businessmen between the countries.

Nikolay Mladenov also signed an agreement  for Economic Cooperation with Pakistan and have met ambassadors from EU  countries in Islamabad, to inform them of the results of the visit.

The above visit shows that the investments between the two countries will be supported on a governmental level. Pakistani businessmen who want to invest in Bulgaria, can benefit of the low taxation (down to 0%) and also can get permanent residence or long-term residency, because of the state guaranteed  benefits to foreign investors.

As a member of EU, Bulgaria is able to provide EU residency to third-party nationals. One of the most efficient ways to obtain residency is through investment in the local Bulgarian economy. Which area you can invest and how much you need to invest? Here are some examples:

1. Low level investment programme – We offer small investor program for obtaining long-term residency. If you invest at least 50,000 Euros in real estate sector in Bulgaria, we can assist you in obtaining long term residence for EU (Bulgaria).

2. Middle level investment programme – the second level investment is the one for at least 512,000 euros (1 million Bulgarian Levs). This type of investment provides you directly permanent residency in Bulgaria. The investment need to be made mainly in financial sector or in joint-ventures with the government and municipality. The area of investment will be either direct financial services (for sole investments) OR any other economics area (for joint ventures with municipalities and the government).

3. High level investment programme – this type of investment programme is the highest one and the one which gives the investor the most benefits of all. The amount that needs to be invested is at least 8,000,000 Euros. With this residency option the investor can obtain not only permanent residency immediately, but also can benefit of 0% corporate tax, special government benefits, such as special dedicated government employees that will serve only to the investor’s project and government help with salary payments to certain amount of investor’s employees. There are many more benefits which will make the investor not only be EU resident, but will make him gain huge profit out of the opened EU markets. Remember Bulgaria, as part of the EU can export without any restrictions to any EU country. Under certain additional conditions the investor in this programme can also apply for Bulgarian citizenship too.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit visited Bulgaria and met the Bulgarian forreign minister. One of the main topics that were discussed was the economic cooperation between the two countries. Bulgaria and Egypt have strong friendship relations dated long time ago.

Minister Mladenov focused on the traditionally good political and economic relations between the two countries, but emphasized on the need to increase the exchange particularly in the areas of commerce, tourism and agriculture. Bulgaria can extend its tourist sector by cooperating with Egypt’ s strong know-how in the tourism area. Workforce can also be attracted from Egypt, as Egyptians working in tourist sector are highly qualified. This will positively influence visa and residency applicants from Egypt who want to invest in the priority sectors such as commerce, tourism and agriculture.

The full overview of the visit can be read here

Our residence services has been updated. We now offer quicker processing of applicant’s EU residency applications. Call us to learn more on the updates.

The EU has waived tourist/business visas for citizens of Taiwan. This is a good news for all Taiwanese, as this opens a big business and investments opportunities to EU-Taiwan relations. This also influence the immigration of Taiwanese to EU, including Bulgaria. However in order to apply for residence, Taiwanese need to apply for Visa “D” and  later on residence card. This, however will be much easier as there is already a positive attitude of EU toward Taiwan. The full news can be read here

Bulgaria will finalize its preparation for inclusion in the Schengen zone by March 2011. The government retains its main focus on the reforms and will do its best to achieve improvement of the European Commission’s assessment under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. Those were the main messages of the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov during his visit to the Czech Republic for the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Sofia and Prague.

This will enable foreigners who are Bulgarian residents to reside more than 3 months in the Schengen area without having to apply for local residence.

Source: Ministry of Foreign affairs

The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the meeting of the foreign minister, Mr. Mladenov with his Egypt colleague Mr. Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. Various topics were discussed including cooperation between the two countries regarding labour force, economics, investments and tourism.

This is a good sign as Bulgaria now needs investors and qualified workers. The parties will probably discuss the residency issues and residency investment regimes for Egyptians. Early next year the Bulgarian prime minister will visit Egypt for further discussions on the topic.

Visa map for EU and Bulgaria
EU member states Special visa-free provisions (Schengen treaty, OCT or other) Visa required to enter the EU – annex I countries Visa required to enter Schengen area and for transit through Schengen area Visa-free access to the EU for 90 days – annex II countries Visa-status unknown, listed neither in annex I nor in II

The Bulgarian Ministry of Interior have stated the readiness of Bulgaria to join Shengen agreement in yearly 2011. The Shengend agreement will allow Bulgaria to remove its borders with Romania and Greece. This means that anyone having residency in Bulgaria can travel in EU without being stopped  when entering another EU member state territory. What does it mean in plain words? Well, let’s say you have Bulgarian residency and you decide to visit your cousin in the UK. It will be as easy as filling your car with petrol and drive to the UK – no border control, no long queues and checks.

IF you are searching for the quickest way to get EU residency, you came to the right place. Bulgarian legislation is offering the option to get permanent residency in couple of months, by investing in Bulgarian economy. The investment need to be in economic area of your choice. Whether it will be agriculture (land, farming, wine production) or it will be the alternative energy production (solar and wind power generators) or you just want to invest in land, regulate it and re-sell it. The choice is yours.

After you have started the investment our professional team will prepare the permanent residency application documents and we’ll introduce you to the Bulgarian Minister of Finance and the minister in whose area you have made the investment. The investment plan will be discussed and the the permanent residency documents will be processed within one month.

You will be happy to enjoy your free travel across EU and making new business contacts and developing your business to an EU scale.

Bulgaria is a good place to start your EU venture. Take a look at official Bulgarian National Bank investment statistics and you will see how open Bulgaria is for any type of investment.