Foreign deficit goes up

The current account deficit has resumed its fast-paced growth, going up 71% after having slowed down to 30-40% in the last few months of 2005 against the corresponding period of 2004. The double trade deficit from transactions with commodities, reaching up to 438 million euros, was seen in the rise of the current account deficit for January, up to 391 million euros. Net foreign currency inflows from current transfers, which totalled 251 million euros could not offset the downfall of the trade balance. Inflows were in fact annulled by the deepening deficit of the balance of revenues, which reached 204 million euros. Apart from the inflows derived from transfers, the only positive element which managed to slightly reduce the current account deficit was the surplus in the balance of services, but the 15 million euros were not a substantial sum. Romania is still posting 21 million euros worth of deficits in the transport services, which represents a 34% increase from the year-ago period. At the same time, tourism brought revenues worth only 50 million euros, while Romanians paid 47 million euros to travel abroad. ZF