Premier Viorica Dancila attending '16+1' Summit in Sofia

Premier Viorica Dancila will head the Romanian delegation that will participate this Saturday in the seventh Summit of the China - Central and Eastern European Countries cooperation format ('16+1') organized in Sofia, Bulgaria, the government said in a release. 

According to the cited document, the major goal of the summit is to promote open and pragmatic cooperation among participating states in areas of joint interest such as energy, trade, infrastructure, agriculture, environment and human relations, and help reinforce their development. The stage of ongoing projects will also be assessed and new cooperation initiatives in the '16+1' format will be launched. 

The highlight of the summit will be the plenary dialogue session of the participating heads of government. The China-CEE business forum will take place on the sidelines of the summit, with the heads of government attending the forum's opening ceremony. 

The summit will also be an occasion for bilateral meetings with the heads of the participating delegations. Thus, PM Dancila will meet with the Premier of the State Council of China Li Keqiang and with counterparts from Central and Eastern Europe states, the release reads. 

The China - CEEC cooperation format was initiated in 2011, in the context of the visit to Hungary of then Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, when the first meeting in this format also took place, with the participation of the Economy and Development Ministers from Central and Eastern European states. 

The participating European states are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, while Austria, Belarus, Switzerland, Greece, the European External Action Service and the EBRD have the status of observers. 

The '16+1' summit is organized every year.