The production of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in Bulgaria has slumped by around 20-30% YoY in Q1, said Politimi Paunova, executive director of the industry association. The slowdown was triggered by decreasing orders due to the global economic downturn and smaller gas supplies in the beginning of the year. Preliminary figures of the Bulgarian Association of the Metallurgical Industry revealed that cast iron output fell almost threefold in 2008 to 440k tones, which was explained with problems in Bulgaria’s sole cast iron producer - Kremikovtzi.