Bulgaria's current account deficit for the first five months of the year was 3.06 billion euro, an increase of 18.1 per cent over the same period of 2007, when the deficit was 2.59 billion euro, Bulgarian National Bank data published on July 15 shows.

Relative to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), the C/A gap increased to 9.3 per cent, from 8.9 per cent in January-May 2007.

In May, the current account deficit was 627.4 million euro, 36 per cent up over 460.5 million euro in May 2007.

The trade deficit was once again the main driver of the C/A gap, reaching 3.37 billion euro, or 10.3 per cent of GDP in January-May. In the same five months of 2007, the trade deficit was 2.7 billion euro, or 9.3 per cent of GDP.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 15 per cent in the same period, the central bank data showed. At 1.71 billion euro, FDI covered 55.7 per cent of the current account gap, compared with 78.1 per cent for the first five months of 2007.