Bulgarias mining sector should be governed by a state agency, members of the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology (BCMG) said during a meeting with Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov on October 17, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.
Hot issues like local and foreign investment in the sector, concession contracts and others were among the topics of discussion at the meeting initiated by the BCMG.
The Chamber insisted that a national agency should be created, which would defend the interests of the mining industry and take care of the state policy for its future development. The agency should also exercise control over the countrys natural resources and co-ordinate the granting of concessions for research and extraction.
Currently, those authorities were spread among several ministries, which was to the detriment of the projects under implementations, and was paving the way for corruption to flourish, especially when granting concessions. Granting concessions was a slow process, lacking clear strategic vision, and this was driving back potential foreign investors, BCMG said.
The idea was several years old but had not yet been accepted by the Economy and Energy Ministry, said Petar Petrov, executive director of BCMG. The ministry had been reasoning its negative view on the idea with the explanation that creating such an agency would only expand the state administration and would make the entire sector supervision even clumsier.
