The conditions of making business in Bulgaria registered an improvement in April 2011, which, however, was not sufficient to offset the deterioration witnessed the previous month, data by the the National Statistics Institute (NSI) shows.

The country's business sentiment index climbed by 2.4 percentage points in the fourth month of the year due to the more upbeat assessments of companies in the manufacturing and services sectors. However, conditions were unfavourable for firms active in the construction and retail trade sectors.

The industry indicator advanced 4.1 percentage points compared with March, while the business climate index in the services sector registered even stronger growth, of 11.1 percentage points.

The index for the construction sector lost 3.3 percentage points, while in the retail trade sector, the index dropped by 4.2 percentage points.

According to the NSI survey among managers, construction developers and retail traders are increasingly pessimistic about the state of their companies, with traders seeing no potential for improvement in the next six months.

On the opposite side, firms active in the services sector project an upturn in demand on a six-month horizon.