Current account looking better

Two months through the year the current account deficit in Romania’s balance of payments was worth $72 million, more than 50% lower than in the same time of 2002.
After last year’s performance when it dropped below 4% of GDP ($1.5bn), the deficit is expected to go up to 4.3% of GDP in 2003.
The deficit started progressing fast in February, when it went up by $57 million, due to the doubling in the negative balance of the balance of foreign trade in goods ($240 million).
At the same time, cash inflows in form of current transfers slowed down a bit, as the balance of such transfers was of $90 million in February, compared to the $105 million in January.
If looking at the corresponding period of 2002, the balancing of the current account was mainly supported by the goods segment, which witnessed a deficit decline from the $321 million in February 2002 to $240 million in the first two months of 2003. Services also performed well, as they moved from the $35 million negative balance in 2002 to the $30 million excess in February 2003. The most significant contribution in this regard came from transport services, which posted $33 million surplus. Things are headed for the worse where revenues and current transfers are concerned, though. The revenue deficit went up $28 million, while the constantly increasing surplus registered by the current transfers over the last two years was $12 million lower than the one in January-February 2002. The foreign medium and long-term debt rose 3.1% from December 2002 and amounted to $15,676 million at the end of February.
The foreign public and publicly secured debt had come to total $9,751 million by February 28 and accounted for 62.2% of the medium and long-term debt, compared with 62.7% on December 31, 2002. The private foreign debt went up 4.6% compared with December 2002, reaching $5,925 million.