he need
to conserve scarce foreign exchange, strong emphasis has been placed on
recycling waste materials. A decree on this subject was issued in 1960,
and a special Secondary Raw Materials State Economic Trust was created
in 1965. Another comprehensive decree was issued in November 1971
because, as stated in its preamble, the importance of collecting and
using waste materials had been underestimated, and the needs of the
economy were not being met. The new decree was intended to organize the
collection and processing of waste materials, including metals, paper,
rubber, textiles, and worn-out machinery and household equipment, on a
modern industrial basis under the direction of the waste materials
trust. Special provision was made in the decree concerning the handling
of unused machinery and surplus materials held by economic enterprises,
and sanctions were provided for failure to surrender or refusal to
purchase such surplus equipment and materials.

INVESTMENT

Industry's share of total annual investment rose steadily from 34.2
percent in 1960 to 47.3 percent in 1969 but declined in the next two
years to 43.9 percent. In absolute terms and in current prices, annual
investment in industry increased from 466.3 million leva in 1960 to 1.6
billion leva in 1970 and declined to 1.58 billion leva in 1971.

More than four-fifths of the industrial investment in the 1961-71 period
was devoted to the expansion of producer goods industries. The
proportion of investment funds allotted annually for this purpose was
slightly lower in the 1966-71 period than it had been in the preceding
five years; it ranged between 84.7 and 87.8 percent in the 1961-65
period and between 81.2 and 85.5 percent thereafter, except for 1970,
when it declined to an atypical low of 78.5 percent.

The bulk of industrial investment was channeled into heavy industry,
including fuel and energy production, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy,
chemicals, and machine building and metalworking. In the 1960-65 period
fuel and energy production were the major recipients of investment
funds; in subsequent years machine building and chemicals became the
primary targets of investment activity. Ferrous metallurgy was among the
five largest investment recipients through 1967, but nonferrous
metallurgy dropped from this group after 1964. Beginning in 1967
substantial investment funds were also devoted to food processing--the
major export industry and earner of foreign