Bulgaria’s overall business confidence index has declined by 0.5 percentage points in November compared with the previous month due to more pessimistic assessments and expectations in construction, retail and services sectors.

Industry is the only sector to report an increase in business confidence due to more optimistic expectations of entrepreneurs about the state of their companies in the next six months, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said in a monthly survey of Bulgaria’s business climate on Friday.

Managers in industry pointed to uncertain economic environment and insufficient domestic demand as the main obstacles to their business.

The business confidence index in the construction sector has decreased by 1.6 points in November compared with October due to entrepreneurs’ more unfavourable estimates about the current state of their firms, according to NSI.

The business confidence index in the retail trade sector decreased by 1.0 point and was down by 1.4 points in the services sector.

Most of the managers in the four sectors expect the selling prices of their products to remain unchanged over the next three months.