Bulgaria's industrial production increased 4.8% y/y in April, slowing down from a 6.5% y/y rise in March on the back of deteriorated performance in manufacturing and mining, working-day adjusted statistics office data showed on June 8. On a seasonally-adjusted monthly comparison basis, output dropped 1.2% in April, after climbing 0.9% in March.

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 8.4% y/y in April, after rising 10.3% y/y the month before. Within manufacturing, the highest y/y increases were reported in “fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment” (+43.1%) and tobacco products (+35%). The deepest y/y declines were in other transport equipment (-23.5%) and beverages (-9.1%).

Mining production dropped 2% y/y in April, reversing a 4.2% y/y rise in March. Output climbed 18.6% y/y in the mining of coal and lignite, but went down in metal ores (-7.3%) and 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 4.2% in April from 5% in March.