On September 8 Bulgaria will sign a memorandum of understanding with Austrian steel giant
Voestalpine in the hope of making it choose this country for the location of a future steel plant. Making public the upcoming signing of the memorandum, Economy and Energy Minister Peter Dimitrov said it sets out the obligations of both sides provided that the investor chooses Bulgaria for its project.

He also said that Romania, Turkey and Ukraine, too, are vying for the Austrian project, BTA reports.

Talks with the potential investor are expected to be over by the end of this year, Dimitrov said.

Among the government's obligations as set out in the memorandum of understanding, is to build an industrial zone. Voestalpine, for its part, will undertake to compete for a location for its facility within the industrial zone.

It will be expected to invest no less than 5 billion euro in a facility that will have an annual capacity of some 5.5 million t a year, use the latest environment-friendly technologies and have a staff of 4,500 or more.

The Economy Minister said Bulgaria could hardly hope for an advantage over Romania in terms of available greenhouse allowances - which is known to be a priority for Voestalpine in the choice of location for their future plant.

What is worse, Bulgaria does not even have an advantage over Ukraine and Turkey which have no such allowances and do not have an obligation to pay for the greenhouse gases they generate, he said adding that the final decision on the greenhouse allowances is not only up to Bulgaria and the European Commission has the last word.