site.btaBulgaria's Wood Processing Industry Collapsing, Warns Expert

The wood processing industry in the country is collapsing, said Petar Dishkov, an expert at the Bulgarian Branch Chamber of Woodworking and Furniture Industry (BCWFI), quoted in a press release by the Chamber on Monday.

"For the past 2024, production is at a record low, and for 2025, the situation is even worse. While in Europe 75-80% of the growth is harvested, in Bulgaria for last year this percentage is 42. The results of this are already evident – the country is engulfed in fires, and forests in the lowlands are drying up en masse. The lack of a consistent policy has led to an exodus of investors, bankruptcies, and the closure of production facilities," Dishkov commented. "One of the largest investors, Mondi Stambolijski, which in 2018 declared its intention to make new investments of BGN 600 million, ceased operations in Bulgaria and reoriented itself towards Czechia, where it invested BGN 400 million. The country has timber reserves similar to ours," the expert points out.

According to him, most of the processors have limited their activities or stopped working altogether. Forestry workers are on strike because their wages have not been updated. "Forestry, together with the forest industry (wood processing and furniture manufacturing), employs over 60,000 people, mainly in semi-mountainous and mountainous regions threatened by depopulation, and also accounts for 3% of GDP. However, the potential of the two sectors could be doubled. Most EU countries recognize the importance of the forestry sector - for example, Poland has declared its intention to designate wood as a key raw material," Dishkov added. 

He urged the state to realize the importance of this sector, instead of leaving forests to be destroyed by natural disasters, to dry up or burn down.