Direct foreign investment in Bulgaria for the first 10 months of 2006 reached 3.202 billion euro, Economy and Energy Minister Roumen Ovcharov said.

Bulgaria ranked 47th on business competitiveness in an international chart. It ranked higher than countries like Italy, Romania, Poland, and Croatia.

Some of the main challenges that Bulgaria still had to deal with included energetics, innovations and labour hand qualification, Ovcharov said as quoted by Bulgarian National Radio.

The lack of qualified labour hand could turn into a problem for the Bulgarian economy, Ovcharov said. Further investment was needed to deal with the issue, said he.

Over the first nine months of 2006 the Bulgarian industrial sector registered an 11.3 per cent growth rate.

Union representatives said during a meeting with Ovcharov that Bulgarian prices were closer to the European averages than salaries.

Bulgarian companies lacked enough information on the distribution of EU funds, union representatives said.