Romania Growth Stable

Romania recorded a 4% economic growth in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the same quarter of last year, mainly driven up by domestic consumption, according to fresh data released by the National Statistics Institute on Thursday. Domestic consumption contributed 3.6 percentage points to the economic growth, investments contributed by 0.8 percentage points while net exports had a negative contribution of -0.6 percentage points, the INS data shows, Romania Insider reported. From an inputs point of view, industry had the highest contribution to the first quarter growth, of one percentage point, followed by trade, transport, hotels and restaurants (0.8 percentage points), IT&C, professional and support activities and public administration and services (0.3 percentage points each). Romania’s economy will grow by an average annual rate of 5% in the 2019-2021 period, according to the Convergence Program the government adopted last week. Household consumption and investments will be the main growth engines in this period. Private consumption is expected to grow by an average 5.8% per year while investment will increase by 8.2% per year, local Agerpres reported.