Domestic Demand in Bulgaria Registers Growth

The domestic demand in Bulgaria is improving and less companies point to its low levels as hampering their functioning.

This is visible from the latest figures of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) for May, weekly Capital reports.

According to the business observations, the low domestic demand is causing problems only in the construction sector, while there is a considerable improvement in retail trade in the past year.

This trend is also visible in manufacturing, but on the other hand the shortage of orders from abroad is growing.

There is a considerable increase in the number of companies from all sectors of the economy, which are identifying the lack of labour force as presenting a serious difficulty.

This is especially visible in the sectors of construction and retail trade, as a year ago only 3.4 % of the companies pointed to it as presenting a difficulty, while 14 % pointed to is as being a problem this year.

At the same time, the unemployment rate remains relatively high, standing at 10.6 % in the first quarter of 2015.

According to a study of the market economy institute “Bulgaria without poverty”, among the economically active people, 81.7 % of those with higher education have a job, while only 29.7 % of those with lower levels of education are employed.

However the largest problem in all sectors of the economy remains the uncertain economic environment with more than half of the companies pointing to it as representing a problem.

The permanent legislative and regulatory amendments, the lack of decent administrative service, the frequent change of civil servants are all affecting the proper functioning of companies.

The evaluation of the business climate is improving in the past year with some drops, which seem to have been overcome.

After the retail trade was among the most harmed businesses in the years following the global financial crisis, the trend in the sector is showing a more sustainable improvement.

The lookout of the business climate in the services sector is the best one in the past twelve months, while the negative forecasts in manufacturing seem to have been overcome for the moment.

As regards the construction sector, the lookout is quite good and there have been no such high levels of optimism since the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.

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