Good news from industry might mean stronger industrial output in the second quarter of the year. New orders in industry from the domestic and the external market grew 3.7% year-on year in May, while turnover in industry went up by 7.1%.
Positive industry and construction data came after at the beginning of last week the Statistics Institute announced that the leading indicator of population’s consumption – retail – went up 5.6% in May year-on-year, after a 4% rise in the first four months of the year.
Thanks to the rise of trade and to the positive contribution to GDP of agriculture and construction, and possibly of industry, some analysts expect the second quarter to see the year’s biggest rise, after the economy had gone back into recession in the first quarter.
But for the entire year industry will have a weaker contribution to GDP, according to most estimates, amid weaker external demand from European countries facing the sovereign debt crisis.
Signals were good from the construction sector as well. In May the volume of construction works rose 16.5% year-on-year, a comparable pace to April.
On the other hand, news from the energy sector is not good.
Electricity consumption, whose performance is indicative of how the entire economy is going, was down 1.8% year-on-year in the first five months of the year, to 21.9 billion KWh.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)