“We are working on a new forecast. It is not finalized yet. It will probably be ready next week,” said Ion Ghizdeanu, president of the forecast commission.
Romania remains on track with an economic growth of 1.5% this year, but signs have emerged that problems will worsen next year, considering the situation on international markets and the slowdown of foreign trade.
While in spring, bank analysts, as well as international financial institutions improved their forecasts on the trend of the economy this year and in 2012, with most new estimates on GDP growth moving from around 1% to around 2%, now downward adjustments are to be expected.
BCR, the largest bank on the Romanian market, has recently revised this year’s economic growth forecast from 2% to 1.4%.
The European Commission warned on Thursday that the EU economy was slowing down.
“The recovery in the EU economy is slowing. Following a robust 0.8% quarter-on-quarter growth in the first quarter of this year, GDP grew by a meager 0.2% in the second quarter in both the EU and euro area. While some rebalancing of growth towards domestic demand had been observed in the first quarter, net exports have again taken over as the main contributor to growth in the second quarter.”
Economic growth is expected to be weak in the second half of the year. Based on updated prospects for the seven largest member countries, GDP is now expected to grow 0.2% in the Eurozone in the fourth quarter. For 2011 the GDP growth forecast has been revised down 0.1% for the EU, to 1.7%, while for the Eurozone, forecasts have remained unchanged to the European Commission’s spring forecast of 1.6% growth.
Next year’s growth estimates initially ranged between 3.5 and 4%, but banks have started to revise their figures down. The official economic growth forecast for 2012 could be revised significantly down, to 2.5%, considering the international situation and the slowdown of exports, according to recent statements from Valentin Lazea, chief economist of the BNR.
BCR has cut next year’s economic forecast by one percent from 3.9% to 2.9%, citing the prospects of continued Eurozone tensions, which would have an impact in Romania both in terms of demand for exports and in terms of capital flows.
BRD SocGen has one of the most conservative estimates on the GDP trend for this year, anticipating growth of just 1.5%, and of 3% for 2012.
(English version by Daniela Stoican; Editing by Radu Bostan)