Romanian economic growth advanced at the fastest pace since 2008, exceeding analysts’ estimates, supported by a booming consumption amid tax cuts and wage increases, Bloomberg reported. Second-quarter gross domestic product gained a preliminary 6% from a year earlier, compared with a 4.3% gain in the previous three months, the National Statistics Institute said Friday. That’s more than the 4.1% median estimate of nine economists in a Bloomberg survey. GDP grew a seasonally adjusted 1.5% from the first quarter. “The advance should have been driven by private consumption,” Nicolae Covrig, a Bucharest-based economist at Raiffeisen Bank Romania SA, said in a note before the data were published. “The performance of industry should have remained weak in the second quarter,” while “net exports might have had a negative contribution.” With the economy already among the EU’s fastest-growing, Romanian citizens are reaping the benefits of tax cuts and state-wage increases approved by lawmakers to lure voters before a general election later this year.
