Bulgarian Consumer Price Growth Slows on Demand, Food Costs

Bulgarian inflation decelerated in June as the euro-area’s debt crisis damped demand and a seasonal abundance of fruits and vegetables cut food costs.

Consumer prices rose 1.6 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 1.7 percent increase in May, the National Statistics Institute in Sofia said in a statement today. Prices fell 1 percent from May.

Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country in terms of economic output per capita, withstood the global recession in 2009 without an international bailout.

The country’s EU-harmonized inflation will ease to 2.6 percent on average in 2012 and 2.7 percent in 2013, the EU forecast on May 11.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elizabeth Konstantinova in Sofia at ekonstantino@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net