site.btaEurope's Shortage of Energy, Mineral Resources Gives Bulgarian Mining Industry Head Start - Report

The Bulgarian mining industry has a very good head start, given the undeniably huge changes in the availability of energy and mineral resources to Europe triggered by the war in Ukraine. Bulgaria needs to make the best and most timely use of the opportunity to expand its capacity by developing new deposits, attracting strategic partners and increasing its share in the processing of inputs into products of higher added value for industry. A team of the Economic and Public Policies Council recommends this in a report on Bulgaria's resource independence in the post-war economic conditions, which was presented by its authors at a BTA-hosted news conference here on Monday.

Bulgaria is Europe's third largest copper producer and fourth largest gold producer, and the country's mining and extractive industry have a large untapped potential for growth, said the team's Kuzman Iliev.

Raw materials will be getting ever more important during the next 30 years, considering Europe's desire to speed up its transition to a low-carbon economy and its plans to make its industrial production more competitive.

The researchers argue that Bulgaria should adopt and implement a long-term strategy reviewing its existing and future policies in the area of mining and extractive industry so as to cash in on the worthwhile prerequisites for steady economic growth, social progress and workforce development.

Europe is the world's only region with a declining extractive and mining sector and relies on China for 98 per cent of its supplies of rare-earth elements and some 62 per cent of the 30 minerals defined as critical by the EU.

Taking advantage of its excellent existing facilities, Bulgaria's extractive industry must be proactive in the attainment of the EU's strategic goals in the sector. Europe is supposed to support the domestic capacity for the extraction and processing of raw and prime materials, the economists note.

The experts propose that the present Natural Resources, Concessions and Control Directorate at the Ministry of Energy be upgraded to an executive agency, which would carry real political weight.