The Bulgarian Economy Growth Lags Behind most Countries in the Region

Bulgaria remains behind most of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries on GDP growth at the end of last year. Eurostat data show that our country is behind Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia on this indicator and outpaces only the Czech Republic and Croatia in the last quarter of 2018 compared to the same period of the previous one.

The calculations show that the Bulgarian economy grew by 3.2% at the end of December compared to a year earlier. Compared to the third quarter of 2018, growth was 0.8%. In the region, Latvia recorded the highest growth rate (5.6 per cent), Hungary (4.9 per cent), Poland (4.6 per cent) and Estonia (4.3 per cent). 4% is growth in Romania and Slovakia. Immediately before Bulgaria are Lithuania and Slovenia with 3.6% for both. Only the Czech Republic and Croatia are in the region with 2.8% and 2.4% respectively in the last quarter of 2018. For the whole of the European Union, GDP growth over the previous quarter is 0.3% and 1.4% on the same quarter of 2017. Over the past year, euro area growth is 1.8 percent, and in the EU - from 1.9 percent, from 2.4 percent last year.