Confusing foreign investment figures

Foreign investment in Romania had come to total $9.59bn by late July. So far the figures are clear, but confusion is just beginning. According to the provisional data released by the National Office of the Trade Registry (ONRC), the value registered on July 31 was $824.5 million higher than that at the end of last year – $8.77bn. Late June data published by the same ONRC, however, showed the foreign investment to have been above $9bn by December 31, 2002, i.e. $9.11bn to be precise. So does the foreign investment in the first seven months of the year amount to $474 million or to nearly $825 million? A question arises therefrom: are we talking growth or decline? Because an older report of ONRC shows the foreign investment in the first seven months of 2002 to have amounted to $677.2 million. ZF