On the monthly level, sales revenues in industry fell by 0.3% and orders by 1.4% in December, figures released by the Statistics Office show.

Turnover in mining and quarrying collapsed by more than 26% on December 2011 and was down nearly 10% compared to November 2012.

In manufacturing, the decline was less substantial, at the monthly rate of 0.2% and the annual rate of 2.6%.

In the whole of last year, turnover in mining was down 14.5% and in manufacturing it declined by 0.5%.

Revenues from sales of intermediate goods and capital goods decreased by 2% and 3.6%, respectively, while revenues from sales of consumer goods increased by 2%.

Sales revenues generated on the domestic market fell by 12.5% year-on-year in December, while those generated on foreign markets rose by 1.5%. Respective drops of 1.9% and 0.3% were recorded in December on November.

For the whole of last year, turnover on the domestic market dropped by 8.5%, while increasing by 2.4% on foreign markets.