 During the fall of 1965 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the USSR signed an economic cooperation agreement for the period of 1966-1970, which contained a provision that by the end of 1968 the "Balkan" factory in Lovech would be completely tooled for the assembly of 15,000 "Moskvitch" 408 passenger cars annually.In January 1966, a group of 20 Bulgarian engineers were sent to the MZMA Moscow Factory for Compact Cars, later renamed to AZLK, or the "Leninist Communist Youth League Automobile Factory".By the end of July 1966 a total of 90 people (in three groups of 30 people each) were sent to the MZMA for training.