Bosnia could soon get a permit to export food to the Chinese market, the Chinese Prime Minister said on Friday, during the meeting of the '16+1' initiative member states held in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Speaking to Bosnia’s Foreign Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic, the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang said the permit would result in a substantial increase of Chinese investments in Bosnia’s Economy.

The ’16+1′ format is a Chinese initiative aimed at intensifying and expanding cooperation with 11 EU member states and 5 Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia) in the fields of investments, transport, finance, science, education, and culture.

The Dubrovnik meeting was dedicated to important infrastructure and energy projects, where Sarovic spoke with delegations of Gezhouba and China Energy companies.

The delegation of the Gezhouba company, which the world’s leading company for the construction of energy facilities, spoke with Sarovic about the remaining tasks for the construction of the Tuzla Thermal Power Plant’s (TPP) ‘Block 7’.

The TPP’s 450 MW capacity ‘Block 7’ is a replacement block for the dated units 1,2,3 and 4.

As this was the meetings of heads of state, Bosnia’s prime minister Denis Zvizdic said that Bosnia is interested in further improving and strengthening the ties with China and Eastern and Central European countries in the fields of tourism, energy, transport, metal and wood processing industry.

“The liberalisation of the visa regime between China and Bosnia resulted in a significant increase of Chinese tourists to Bosnia and the region. We expect that some 100,000 Chinese tourists will visit Bosnia this year,” Zvizdic said addressing the meeting participants.

The ’16+1′ initiative has invested some €29 billion so far, and the initiative announced a new wave of significant investments in all the member states.