From 1956 through 1988, industrial production rose an average of 8.9 percent per year according to official figures, but the actual rates declined steadily during the thirty-three year period. The annual average rate of industrial growth for the periods 1956- 60, 1961-70, 1971-80, and 1981-8 was 15.5, 11.6, 7.5, and 4.4 percent, respectively. By the late 1980s, Bulgarian industry had completely exhausted the advantages it had used in earlier decades to post impressive growth statistics (see table 12, Appendix).

Data as of June 1992