The National Bank of Bulgaria’s Governing Council took note of the quarterly Economic Review (issue 4/2024), which analyses Bulgarian economic trends using macroeconomic indicators available up to 3 February 2025. The review reports that deposits in the non-government sector continued to rise at a relatively high pace in 2024, driven by household deposits, which increased by 11.8% at year-end, while credit growth remained high at 15.0%, led by households and particularly housing lending. Real GDP expanded by 2.6% year on year in the third quarter of 2024, mainly supported by private consumption alongside strong growth in households’ real disposable income. Employment increased by 0.9% year on year, with services contributing most, while labour shortages eased slightly as industrial labour demand softened; annual inflation slowed to 2.1% in December 2024 due to lower food inflation and falling prices for industrial goods. The review also notes signs of some improvement in activity among Bulgaria’s main trading partners around end-2024 and early-2025, alongside a moderate acceleration in inflation in the United States and the euro area; in January 2025 the European Central Bank continued cutting interest rates, while the Federal Reserve kept the federal funds target range unchanged. A dedicated study in the issue assesses the linkages between Bulgarian exports and Germany’s economy, noting a decline in Germany’s real GDP in 2024 amid difficulties in the industrial sector, some of which may be structural, and estimating Bulgarian export exposure to German economic activity.

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