SOFIA: Bulgaria's economy looks set to slow in the second half of the year after growing by 0.9 percent on a quarterly basis in the first three months of 2015, the central bank said on Tuesday.
"GDP is expected to slow down slightly in the third and fourth quarter of 2015, compared to growth in the first quarter," the central bank said in a review, adding 0the expected slowdown would not affect annual growth significantly.
The central bank's experts, however, said that deteriorating economic conditions in neighbouring Greece, which reached a bailout deal with creditors on Tuesday, as well as continued separatist conflict in Ukraine could weigh on annual growth.
"Additional negative effects can occur in the case of a decrease of direct investments from Greece as well as a decrease in Greek tourists in Bulgaria," the review said.
"Another source of uncertainty of the forecast would be a new deepening of the geopolitical conflict between Ukraine and Russia, given the dependence of the Bulgarian economy on imported crude oil and natural gas from Russia."
The government sees economic growth at 1.4 percent in 2015, while the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund put it at 1.0 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
The economy expanded by 1.7 percent in 2014.
The bank expects Bulgarian inflation in the third quarter to be between -1.0 percent and -0.1 percent and between -0.8 percent and 0.4 percent in the last quarter of 2015.
The Balkan state's government foresees persisting pressures on consumer prices this year, forecasting an average negative inflation of 0.6 percent for 2015.
The European Commission and International Monetary Fund expect consumer prices to drop on the year by an average 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.
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