Bulgaria’s economy grows by 0.2% in Q2
Bulgaria’s economy grew by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of the year, a flash estimate by the European Union’s statistics bureau Eurostat showed on August 14. The flash estimate does not provide absolute figures, due to be published by Bulgaria’s National Statistics Institute next month.
Bulgaria was among 10 EU states whose to post economic growth in the second quarter, while the economies of nine other countries shrank (France posted zero growth and seven countries did not have data available).
Overall, the cumulative gross domestic product of the 27 EU member states was down 0.2 per cent during the quarter and the 17-country euro zone was also down 0.2 per cent.
Among the bloc’s larger economies, only Germany reported economic growth (0.3 per cent), while France surprised analysts by failing to slide into recession and posting zero growth, but Spain (-0.4 per cent), Italy (-0.7 per cent) and United Kingdom (-0.7 per cent) all saw their economies shrink.
Compared to the second quarter of 2011, Bulgarian GDP was 0.5 per cent higher, while the EU as a whole lost 0.2 per cent on an annual basis and the euro zone’s economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in the same period of time.
Six countries (Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Slovakia) were yet to provide economic growth data for the second quarter, while Greece, which only provides annual (but not quarterly) data saw its economy shrink by 6.2 per cent in the second quarter compared to the same period of 2011.
(Photo: czbalazs/sxc.hu)
