Romania's current-account deficit widened in the first five months of the year as rising wages and a lending boom encouraged citizens to buy more imported goods. The gap widened to 6.53 billion euros ($10 billion) from 5.88 billion euros in the same period of last year, according to the Bucharest-based Banca Nationala a Romaniei earlier today.
A lending boom, which saw private debt shoot up by more than an annual 61 percent in May, and annual net wage increases of 23.3 percent in that month encouraged Romanians to buy more imports, widening the trade and current-account gaps.
The European Union has warned Romania to narrow the gaps or risk instability of the local currency because of global economic uncertainty. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's have lowered their outlooks on Romania's credit rating, citing the deficits.
The trade deficit, the main component of the current-account gap, widened to 6.9 billion euros in the first five months of the year from 6 billion euros a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute said on June 9.
Net money transfers to Romania, mainly from the estimated 2 million citizens living abroad, increased to 2.25 billion euros in the first five months from 1.88 billion euros a year earlier, the central bank said today.
The services component of the gap, including tourism and transportation, saw a net inflow of 194 million euros, from an inflow of 422 million euros a year earlier.
Foreign direct investment in the first five months totaled 4.1 billion euros, compared with 2.1 billion euros in the same period of last year, the bank said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment