Structure
Manufacturing is the dominant sector of industry in terms of employment and output. In 1971 manufacturing accounted for 93.9 percent of the total industrial output and provided employment to 88.3 percent of the industrial labor force. Mining and energy production contributed 3.6 and 2.5 percent, respectively, of the industrial output and employed 10.3 and 1.4 percent, respectively, of the labor force. More than half the industrial establishment was devoted to the production of capital goods. In 1971 the capital goods sector employed 52.5 percent of the industrial labor force and produced 56 percent of the output. The relative importance of the capital goods sector had been rising over a period of years, from 36.7 percent of the output in 1948 and 47.2 percent in 1960. During the same period the contribution of the consumer goods sector to total output had declined from 63.3 percent in 1948 to 52.8 percent in 1960 and 44 percent in 1971. As a consequence of the priority development of heavy industry, the supply of consumer goods on the domestic market has been inadequate to meet consumer needs (see ch. 5).
In terms of their employment shares, the largest state industry branches in 1971 were: machine building and metalworking, 25.5 percent; food processing, 14.4 percent; and textiles, 11.3 percent. Next in importance, but with much lower levels of employment, were: timber and woodworking, 7.4 percent; chemicals and rubber, 6.1 percent; and fuels, 5.5 percent. Industrial branches that experienced the most rapid growth in the 1960-71 period included ferrous metallurgy, chemicals and rubber, machine building and metalworking, and fuels. Among the slowest growing branches were timber and wood processing, textiles, nonferrous metallurgy, and food processing.
FUELS AND POWER
Domestic resources of mineral fuels are inadequate for the needs of industry. Through the limitation that it places on electric power development, the fuel shortage—in the absence of a large hydroelectric power potential—may become a major factor inhibiting industrial growth. In 1968 the proportion of petroleum and natural gas in the fuel balance was somewhat more than 42 percent; it is planned to rise to about 60 percent in 1975 and to at least 65 percent in 1980. Virtually all petroleum and natural gas must be imported.
Reserves of anthracite and bituminous coal are insignificant; their production amounts to less than 2 percent of the annual coal output. Brown coal deposits that can be mined economically are nearing exhaustion, and brown coal production declined by about one-third in the 1960-70 period. Low-calorie lignite remains the major fuel base for thermoelectric power stations. Reserves of this inferior fuel are large.
Coal deposits are scattered in about twenty small deposits. Because of difficult geological conditions, however, only a few of the deposits are exploited. Anthracite is mined in the Svoge basin, located in the Iskur gorge area of the Stara Planina, north of Sofia. Bituminous coal is mined in the same mountain range, in the area between Gabrovo and Sliven. The deposit at Sliven was reported to contain a very small quantity of coking-grade coal—a quantity far below the needs of the iron and steel industry. In addition to large annual imports of coking coal, Bulgaria has also imported from 250,000 to 465,000 tons of coke per year.
The main source of brown coal for many years has been the Pernik basin in the upper Struma valley, about nineteen miles southwest of Sofia. In the 1971-75 period brown coal mining is to be substantially expanded at the Bobov Dol deposit in the Rila mountain range, south of the Pernik basin. The Babino mine in the Bobov Dol coalfield is scheduled to become the largest underground coal mine in the Balkans. Reserves in this deposit, however, are equivalent to only about five to six years' production at the 1970 rate of brown coal output.
Lignite is mined mainly in the Maritsa basin, near Dimitrovgrad in the Thracian Plain, and in the Sofia Basin. The Maritsa basin, particularly the area known as Maritsa-Iztok (Maritsa-East), has become the basic source of coal production, contributing about 50 percent of the country's output. Aside from planned new mine construction, the Maritsa-Iztok complex is to be rebuilt and modernized. Production problems at this mine have not yet been solved satisfactorily. Coal-bearing strata have not been fully identified; equipment is utilized to only about 40 percent of capacity; and the organization of labor is poor. Substantial improvement also remains to be attained in processing the coal for market, in view of its high ash and moisture content. Unsolved problems also remain in the manufacture of coal briquettes.