The February 2017 issue of the Monthly Report on Bulgarian Economy was released. It  presents recent developments of main macroeconomic indicators.

GDP growth reached 3.5% yoy in Q4 2016, thus Bul-garian economy expanded by 3.4% for the whole year. Both domestic demand and net export contributed positively for the quarterly growth. On the supply side, gross value added increased by 3.4% yoy in the last quarter.

Short-term business statistics showed somewhat mixed performance in the beginning of 2017, as the industrial production and sales decelerated, the de-cline in the construction output narrowed and retail trade increased in January. The consumer confidence also improved in February on the back of better expec-tations regarding the economic situation and the fi-nancial situation of households, while the overall busi-ness climate indicator decreased due to some worsen-ing of the assessments in retail trade and industry.

The annual average inflation rate (HICP) accelerated to 0.9% yoy in February, driven mainly by the ongoing recovery in international crude oil prices and the sub-sequent increase in domestic fuel prices. The negative core inflation narrowed to -0.3% yoy.

The Monthly Report on Bulgarian Economy can be downloaded here.