The economy shrank 1 per cent in the second quarter, the Center for Economic Development (CED) says
in a report made available to BTA.

The drop decelerated from 5.9 per cent in the last quarter of 2009 to 3.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2010. CED expects slight growth on year in the last quarter of 2010 or the first quarter of 2011.

The contraction of the economy slowed down in the first quarter due to all three sectors - agriculture, industry and services.

The drop in industry was a mere 0.9 per cent. Since March, manufacture has been growing year on year thanks to the processing industry. Its export sales have been growing since last November, with fast growth being noticed since March.

CED projects year-on-year growth in value added in industry in the second quarter. Construction may start growing, albeit slowly, in the third quarter due to the dynamics of civil construction, the report says.

The current account deficit continued shrinking in 2010. At 708.9 million euro (2 per cent of GDP), the January-May current account deficit was over three times smaller than a year earlier.

Almost half of the decrease is due to a fall in the trade deficit by 814.7 million euro to 3.5 per cent of GDP, as against 6.1 per cent a year ago.

The January-May trade deficit is 60 per cent of the year-earlier figure. Export growth started in November 2009, and import growth was first registered in March 2010.