August 19 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian mining industry output grew by an annual 12% in 2015 to 112.54 million tonnes, the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology (BMGK) said.
"This is a record high for the last 10 years of mining industry in Bulgaria," Lachezar Tsotsorkov said at the annual report issued by the country's Chamber of Mining and Geology, late on Thursday.
The total value of the output of mining companies amounted to 2.41 billion levs ($1.4 billion/1.23 million euro) last year, down 1.1% from 2014, as the increase in production was more than offset by a 6% decline in its value, given the continued drop in prices of all metals on the global market. Production of metal ores and coal were the largest contributors to total value, with shares of 52% and 31%, respectively.
The extraction of industrial minerals saw an annual increase of 24%, followed by the extraction of building materials, solid fuels and metal ores with 17%, 13% and 4% respectively, the report said. Meanwhile, the extraction of stone tiling materials, suffered a decline of 11.4%.
The mining industry in Bulgaria employed some 24,000 and contributed some 27% of the economy's gross value-added (GVA) last year.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)