Armenia and Bulgaria need direct regular flights, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva told reporters in Yerevan.

She noted that this is her first visit to Armenia, “and I hope not the last.”

“We speak different languages, but Bulgaria and Armenia have a lot in common and this has developed historically, including religion. There are about 11 thousand Armenians in Bulgaria. This brings us even closer,” she said. 

According to her, the first Armenian school in Bulgaria opened in the mid-19th century, and now there are eight schools in the country with instruction in the Armenian language and Armenian can be studied at the university.

However, transport links between the two countries greatly complicate the establishment of relations. 

If there was a direct flight, the flight have taken only a couple of hours, she said. 

According to her, charter flights from Burgas and Varna operate, but there is no direct Yerevan-Sofia flight. 

It is difficult to imagine a businessman who will travel 10 hours, she said.

According to her, at a meeting with an Armenian counterpart, they discussed the possibility of improving trade relations. For six months of 2019, the turnover amounted to about 20 million, but this is not enough, Zakharieva noted.

The parties consider engineering, food industry, IT, and medicine as a direction of cooperation. According to the minister, Bulgaria has special EU funds to help start-ups. 

She expressed an intention to develop cooperation with Armenia in both bilateral and multilateral formats. In this context, she noted that a a number of programs are already being implemented in Armenia with the aid of Bulgaria.