Bulgaria's industrial production increased 9.6% y/y in May, speeding up from a 5.1% y/y rise in April on the back of improved performance in all three sections – manufacturing, mining and utilities, working-day adjusted statistics office data showed on July 10. On a seasonally-adjusted monthly comparison basis, output climbed 2.7% in May, after dropping 0.7% in April.

According to GDP data, industry grew by a real 2.8% in 2016. The sector accounted for 23.8% of the gross value added generated by the Bulgarian economy last year. The latest available unadjusted GDP data showed that industry went up 3.2% y/y in the first quarter of 2017.

Manufacturing production grew 13.5% y/y in May, after rising 8.6% y/y the month before. Within manufacturing, the highest y/y increases were reported in tobacco products (+60.1%) and basic metals (+41.9%). The deepest y/y declines were in the manufacturing of textiles (-5.5%) and wearing apparel (-2.6%).

Mining production increased 6.1% y/y in May, reversing a 2% y/y decline in April. Output went up y/y in the mining of coal and lignite (+25.6%) and metal ores (+0.3%), but dropped in other mining and quarrying (-12.9%). In the mining production index there are two more groups – extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas, as well as mining support service activities – but the statistics office did not disclose their performance for confidentiality reasons.

The y/y decrease in the output of utilities narrowed to 3.6% in May from 4% in April.