Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
WINDHOEK – Visiting Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ekaterina Zaharieva says her country is eager to offer scholarships to young Namibians in priority areas.
Such priority areas should be identified by the Namibian government. She made the assurance yesterday during a meeting with President Hage Geingob at State House. Zaharieva and her delegation arrived in the country yesterday and left the same day. The aim of the visit was to provide a platform for the two countries to further enhance the firm foundation of mutual trust and understanding, discuss potential areas of cooperation, particularly in the fields of agriculture, tourism, mining and education.
“We will be very happy to provide scholarships to young Namibians in areas of engineering, agriculture and information technology. Bulgaria is hub in the IT sector in Central Europe, IT is the fastest growing sector in Europe, creating a lot of jobs and we are ready to provide the Namibian youth an opportunity to study IT,” she said.
The foreign minister also suggested that young Namibians who want to start businesses should go to Bulgaria and learn from fellow youth in that country who owns companies, especially in the IT sector before coming back and start their own businesses.
In his welcoming remarks, Geingob thanked Zaharieva for seeing the need to visit Namibia, adding that Bulgaria supported Namibia during the independence struggle and remains a good friend.
“Bulgaria and Namibia has very good relations, we were supported by the international communities during apartheid, including Bulgaria. I want to say thank you very much for supporting us during those days, it was difficult,” Geingob said.
He said the country succeeded in the first struggle which was the independence struggle and it is now faced with the second struggle for economic emancipation, which according to him has proven to be difficult.
“We are obviously happy that those that were with us during the first struggle are now coming to us during the second struggle, as you can see the country is peaceful, democratic and therefore, it provides a conducive environment for business,” he said.