August 10 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's deficit in trade in goods with Russia widened to 5.63 billion levs ($2.94 billion/2.87 billion euro) in the first six months of this year from a little over 2 billion levs in the like period of 2021, the statistics office said on Wednesday.
Bulgaria's imports of goods (CIF) from Russia, which no longer include natural gas after Gazprom stopped deliveries in late April, still increased by an annual 147.4% to just over 6 billion levs in the first half of 2022, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said in a monthly report, citing provisional data.
Bulgarian exports (FOB) to Russia were 0.6% lower year-on-year at 387.4 million levs.
Bulgaria's trade gap with Ukraine more than doubled in annual terms in the January-June period, to 858.8 million levs from some 374 million levs a year earlier. Bulgarian exports (FOB) to Ukraine rose by a yearly 87.7% to 636.7 million levs, while imports (CIF) from Ukraine surged 109.7% to some 1.5 billion levs.
Bulgaria's overall deficit in trade in goods with third countries almost tripled year-on-year in the first half of 2022, reaching 8.4 billion levs.
"The largest growth [in imports] compared to the same period of 2021 was recorded in the sections "Animal and vegetable oils, fats and waxes’ (293.9%) and ‘Mineral fuel, lubricants and related materials," the NSI said.
Bulgaria's main trading partners outside the European Union were Turkey, Serbia, the US, North Macedonia, the UK, China and Ukraine. Together, they accounted for 50.6% of the country's exports to non-EU states which amounted to 4.7 billion levs in total, or 33.9% more than in 2021.
The volume of imports into Bulgaria from third countries jumped 63.6% year-on-year reaching 23.1 billion levs. The largest amount of goods were imported from Russia, Turkey, China and Ukraine.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)