to 2.7 times, except for glass and porcelain wares, the output of which
rose almost fivefold.

By far the most important industries in terms of output value in 1970
were food processing, and machine building and metalworking; these
industries accounted for 25.4 and 20.2 percent of total output,
respectively. Next in importance, with 9.1 percent and 7.5 percent of
the total were the textile and the chemical and rubber industries. The
output of the clothing industry--4.9 percent of total output--surpassed
the production of fuels. The contributions of other industries to the
total industrial output ranged from 0.9 to 3.7 percent. The structure of
industrial output in value terms reflects, in part, the system of prices
used in valuing the output.

Although the country's industrial development has had a history of only
two decades, industry produces a wide variety of industrial and consumer
products, including machine tools, ships, computers, automatic telephone
exchanges, and television sets (see table 20). Bulgaria was also
reported to possess the largest plant in Europe, and second largest in
the world, for the production of electric forklifts and similar
industrial vehicles. The quality of many products, however, though
improving, has not measured up to average world standards. In 1972 the
chairman of the Administration for Quality Standardization, and
Metrology stated that his organization was confronted with a difficult
long-term task of developing an effective quality control system and of
catching up and keeping pace with the constantly rising world quality
standards. In his view, attainment of these goals required a fundamental
improvement of domestic quality standards, effective organizational and
technical measures, well-conceived incentives, and an enormous amount of
indoctrination of the personnel involved in production. The chairman was
confident, nevertheless, that the country's industry would eventually
outstrip the qualitative standards of developed industrial nations in
the same way that it had succeeded in outstripping these nations'
industries with regard to quantitative growth.

_Table 20. Output of Selected Industrial Products in Bulgaria, Selected
Years, 1960-71_

-------------------+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Product | Unit | 1960 | 1965 | 1968 | 1970 | 1971
-------------------+----------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Elect