ranches of countrywide trusts organized along functional lines
(see ch. 12).

The territorial distribution of industry during the 1950-70 period was
determined in large part by the priority development of heavy industry,
the location of which was dictated mainly by the sites of raw material
sources and the location of major consuming centers. In this process
several cities and districts, including Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas,
and Ruse, experienced a large population influx from rural areas and
attendant shortages of housing and public services. At the same time
many villages were deprived of their inhabitants, and homes and public
facilities were abandoned.

In 1970 the Central Committee of the BKP laid down guidelines for a
program of regional economic development, with a view to attaining an
optimal distribution of productive resources (capital and labor). The
aim of the program was to arrest excessive urban growth and the
associated demands on the country's resources for new housing and other
amenities and, at the same time, to help develop backward rural areas.
Within these guidelines, decentralization of industry has been
undertaken, and plans are being worked out for the socioeconomic
development of individual districts under the Seventh Five-Year Plan
(1976-80) and until 1990.

In this context the construction of new industrial plants in heavily
populated areas has been restricted. Further production increases in
these areas are to be attained through modernization of existing
facilities and the introduction of more advanced technology. Special
measures have also been adopted to promote economic growth in the
relatively underdeveloped districts. In part, this program is
implemented through the transfer of industrial activities, equipment,
and labor from the congested cities and districts to rural areas.
Transfers of this kind decreed by the Council of Ministers Bureau in
December 1971 and July 1972 involved 195 production units and 25,000
workers and an annual output of 225 million leva (for value of the
lev--see Glossary). Under existing plans lasting until 1975, however,
industry and employment will continue to expand in some of the most
heavily congested cities.

Supply System

The organization of a smoothly functioning materials and equipment
supply system for industry has been an elusive goal of the leadership
ever since the inception of the controlled economy. Various approaches
to the problem ov