Bulgaria Q2 2007 GDP

Bulgarian economic growth accelerated in the second quarter, driven by consumer spending and investment according to the Bulgarian statistics office today.

Bugaria's $31.5 billion economy expanded at an annual 6.6 percent in the April-June period, compared with 6.2 percent in the first three months of the year. Bulgaria's second-quarter growth rate is the sixth-fastest in the EU, following Latvia, which had an 11 percent expansion in the second quarter, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. Bulgarian growth was 6.1 percent in the 2006 and a6.2 percent in 2005.

Gross fixed capital formation grew 24.7 percent in the first quarter after increasing 36 percent in the first quarter on imports of equipment and new cars. End-user consumption slowed to 5.7 percent, after 7 percent growth in the fourth quarter, the statistics office said today. In the first seven months, foreign investment rose 12 percent to 2.6 billion euros ($3.6 billion), 1 billion euros of which went into real estate, fueling a construction boom for a third year. Second-quarter exports rose 5.7 percent and accounted for 68 percent of GDP, after a 2.2 percent rise and 60.1 percent share of GDP the previous quarter. Imports rose 11 percent and were 88 percent of GDP in the second quarter after a 13.2 percent increase, comprising 88.8 percent of GDP the first quarter. The trade deficit amounted to 24.2% of GDP.

Gross value added by industry rose 10.5 percent and accounted for 27.6 percent of GDP, the office said. Services' GVA rose 9.5 percent, comprising 50 percent of GDP. Agriculture's gross value added fell 5.3 percent, while its share of GDP expanded to 5.3 percent from 3.8 percent in the first quarter.