And Bulgaria's Deputy Minister of Machine Building and Electronics, Todor Diulgerov, termed the American restrictions on strategic items ''a handicap for developing trade, but not development.''

''Sooner or later we get the technology,'' Mr. Dikulgerov said, adding that the Japanese were ''more responsive'' than the Americans. One way Eastern Europeans are getting Western technology is through scientific exchanges. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, for example, has invited American specialists in agricultural research, nuclear physics, metallurgy and mathematics. Also, Bulgarians have gone to the United States to study computer sciences and advanced farming techniques. Rumania

Rumania demonstrated its interest in Western trade by welcoming the establishment of a Manufacturers Trust branch bank in 1974. President Nicolae Ceau,sescu attended the opening. It is the only fully operational American bank in the Eastern bloc and handles operations in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Hungary as well.

Rumania, with its independent foreign policy, enjoys most-favorednation status, is a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and has a special agreement with the European Economic Community. Already, 52 percent of its trade is with the West and the developing countries.

Suffering from foreign exchange shortages because of high oil prices, Rumania has developed a new investment policy that emphasizes arrangements that conserve its hard currency reserves, including countertrade and joint ventures. How Countertrade Works

Rumanians point to the General Electric Company as a model for countertrade arrangements.

G.E. is providing the turbine generator for a Canadian-built nuclear plant, which is the first of 14 to be built in Rumania by the year 2000.

To satisfy the Rumanians' desire for countertrade, the company set up an International Trading Operations Department that will buy Rumanian products such as bearings, copper wire, metal products and steel plate, and that will market Rumanian cement and cloth abroad. Czechoslovakia