The mining industry in Bulgaria has reported the highest average productivity in the industry and the highest average wage across the country, the Chairman of the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology Prof. Nikolay Valkanov said. He pointed to the low incidence of accidents at work, to billions of investments in the sector in the recent years and reported 97 M of tons in output, 4% of GDP, 25,000 jobs and 8000 euro as an average annual pay.

“The sector sees an upsurge, there are no fatalities at work and this is very good. We have close to 5 billion leva (2.5 billion euro) investments in the sector”, the Chamber’s Chairman Nikolay Valkanov also said. He added he was optimistic about its future in connection with a favorable decision for Bulgaria regarding the enhanced criteria of the European Commission for ecological standards in coal mining that threatened this country’s thermal power plants.

There are signals that Bulgaria will be given the chance to rescheduling until it complies with the EC criteria, Valkanov explained and predicted 12% in sector growth this year.