EU’s highest yearly industrial growth rate measured in Bulgaria, amid soaring inflation

This is fantastic news for Bulgaria, as it rarely tops lists as a high performer in the EU. Bulgaria’s industrial output has risen by 20.2% year-on-year in May, which marks the highest among all 27 EU member states. This was stated yesterday by the European statistical office.

The data

Eurostat has presented data on monthly and annual changes by sectors of industry and countries for May 2022. From the report, it’s clear that Bulgaria has reported the highest growth in industrial production on an annual basis compared to other EU countries. Second on the list is Denmark, with an increase of 17.2%, and third is Poland, with a growth rate of 12.5%

At the same time, some countries’ growth rates have decreased. The most considerable shrinkage was measured in Malta, with a -4.8%, followed by Luxembourg (-2.1%) and Germany (-1.4%).

Minister of Economics taking credit

Cornelia Ninova, the Minister of Economy and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, has taken the credit for the record industrial growth in Bulgaria. “This growth is due to four reasons - we stopped racketeering on business, limited theft and leaks, the government supported companies with compensations for expensive electricity, and the business itself made efforts to reorganize and optimize its production to achieve this result,” Ninova said.

“You can see that we are doing better than all European countries. These results show that the government did not fall due to a vote of no confidence because of poor economic indicators but because of bad economic interests. However, these good indicators should not reassure us. They are wonderful news for Bulgaria. For the first time, we are in first place in the EU in terms of industry and economy. But we should not be reassured because inflation is high, prices are high, incomes are low,” Ninova explained.

Ninova added that Bulgaria also registered a record growth in exports for the last 11 years of up to 20% for the EU and 17% for third countries. The increase in imports was a total of 19%.

Soaring Inflation

Despite the incredible growth in industrial output, the yearly inflation rate in Bulgaria has reached a record-high 16.9%.