Domestic economy up by 7.7% last year

The domestic economy grew by 7.7% last year, compared with a previous estimate of 8% and with a growth of 4.1% registered in 2005, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) yesterday. As a result, the gross domestic product (GDP) slightly exceeded the value of 97.15 billion euros (342.4 billion RON). The GDP grew by 17.9 billion euros, in comparison with the value of 79.26 billion euros registered in 2005. The economic growth in euros stood at 22.5%, with the national currency’s appreciation and inflation being two major catalysts behind this result. Although INS published the overall data regarding the GDP, it has not provided additional information for other branches such as agriculture, industry, construction and services, which will not be made available before Friday. “The figure provided by the Institute of Statistics is slightly below our estimates, according to which, the growth should be of around 8%. Even so, 7.7% is a high figure and definitely above the economy’s potential and shows an economic performance that will be hard to repeat,” says Ionut Dumitru, head of the research department within Raiffeisen Bank. He also believes the agricultural production is “guilty” of the fact that economic growth slipped behind the estimated figures. “Given the lack of complete information, we suspect that agriculture contributed a small amount to economic growth over the fourth quarter, as well as throughout last year. However, we do not know too much about the figures for agriculture, unless the INS publishes the results on the GDP. We have more preliminary indicators for other fields, which help us estimate the real situation, however these indicators do not include the results for agriculture, ” Dumitru added.