GDP growth in line with Nastase forecast

Gross Domestic Product rose 8.1% in the fist nine months of this year, helped by the boom in agriculture (20%) and the increases seen in the constructions sector (10%), according to the National Statistics Office.

As a rule, the last quarter does not bring with it big changes to the pace of economic growth, meaning that this year Romania will achieve its fastest rate of economic growth since 1990.

After growth in GDP of 6.6% in the first six months of the year, the economy managed to surge by more than 10% in the third quarter

The results are better than the initial expectations of officials, who assumed a rate of growth that was almost 3% lower when drawing up the budget for this year. Using the data for the first six months, the National Prognosis Commission had estimated a rate of economic growth of 7.6% for 2004.

“It will take us some time to adjust the prognosis for the data from the first nine months. However, given the growth seen in recent years, the rate of growth for the first nine months is only 0.1-0.2% different from the annual rate in terms of GDP. The final quarter does not normally bring big surprises,” said Mircea Panaite, chairman of the National Prognosis Commission. Agricultural producers are still assessing the data. “In terms of production, the increase even comes close to a level of 20%, but we shall have to see whether the rate is the same in terms of value. Production has been quite solid this year compared to last year,” explained Ioan Nicolae, chairman of InterAgro holding, which farms 40,000 hectares of land.

Romania’s grain production rose above 9 million tonnes this year, three times the amount for last year, and similar to the quantities produced in the Czech Republic, for instance.

Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase estimated a level of growth for this year of 8.1% late last week. The National Statistics Office reported the data from the first nine months of the year two weeks earlier than usual.
sorin.pislaru@zf.ro ; stelian.negrea@zf.ro