The sale of military ships to Bulgaria will be announced during the visit of French president Nicolas Sarkozy to the country.

Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia would visit Bulgaria on October 4 2007, Bulgarian news agency BTA reported.

France would sell to Bulgaria three or four corvettes Gowind, French economic capital.fr said. The ships would be constructed by Armaris, the joint company of a naval defence company based in France and a defence company, Thales.

Part of the hulls of the corvettes would be made in Bulgaria.

Since Bulgaria’s EU accession on January 1 2007, the country has been looking to modernise its navy fleet and wants to play a strategic role in the Black Sea region, capital.fr said.

During Sarkozy’s visit President Georgi Purvaniov will award them Bulgaria’s highest honour, the Stara Planina order, for their contribution to the release of the six Bulgarian medics sentenced for deliberate HIV infection in Libya.