Each year Bulgaria has to invest nearly 150 million euro in energy efficiency, economists said.

State Energy Efficiency Agency (SEEA) head Tasko Ermenkov said that after January 1 2007 Bulgaria would join a common market and needed to increase its competitiveness.

Currently Bulgaria produced goods worth one euro using twice as much energy as EU member states, Ermenkov told Bulgarian National Radio.

The tendency had to change as it made Bulgaria less competitive on the common market, said he. Energy auditing of companies was needed as first step, Ermenkov said. Such inspections were going to show what amount of energy was lost and how the development could be countered.

In the coming nine years the EU planned to decrease energy consumption by nine per cent, said Ermenkov. Bulgaria should try to keep up with the trend, said he.

Bulgaria could use the national budget, international financial institutions, investment and EU cohesion funds to meet such goals, said Ermenkov.