Bulgaria’s economy grew by a preliminary 1.6% on the year in the second quarter of 2014 following a 1.2% increase in the first quarter, the statistics office said on Wednesday.

The second-quarter increase is an improvement on the result recorded in the equivalent period of 2013 when Bulgaria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 0.4%.

Bulgaria, which posted economic growth of 0.9% last year, has projected a 1.5% rise in GDP for 2014.

In terms of GDP per capita, H2 2014 GDP amounted to BGN 2,696, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said in a statement.

The NSI also said the industrial confidence indicator dropped by 1.4% last month compared to August 2014, while the industrial production index adjusted for the number of workdays decreased by 0.2% in July compared to the same month of 2013.

In July 2014 the total consumer confidence indicator retreated by 4.3 percentage points from the level recorded three months earlier due to decreased confidence of both urban and rural population which declined by 3.9 and 5.1 percentage points, respectively.

Estimates of the economic situation in Bulgaria over the last 12 months and public expectations about the next 12 months are more pessimistic compared to the previous survey, the NSI said.

There were 381,800 people unemployed in Bulgaria during the second quarter of this year, which translated into unemployment rate of 11.4%.Compared to the second quarter of 2013, the number of unemployed decreased by 12.7% and the unemployment rate fell by 1.5 percentage points.