ING Bank revised its forecast from 4.5% in the summer to 3.7%, Banca Transilvania from 4.6% to 4% and BCR kept its 3.2% forecast, which was one of the most conservative, after all.
The National Statistics Institute last week published detailed data about the gross domestic product performance in the second quarter and the first half, which show the economy progressed only 0.1% in the second quarter compared with the first, its slowest quarterly growth in the past few years.
Agriculture saw a decline of 2% in the second quarter of 2015 compared with the year-ago period and of 7.5% compared with the first quarter of this year.
Agriculture contributed 4.7% to the GDP formation and 0.1% to the economic growth in 2014, but its contribution was low because of the base effect since it had contributed 5.6% to the GDP and 1.1% to the 3.5% economic growth in 2013, an outstanding agricultural year.
It did not contribute in any way to the GDP growth the first half of 2015.
The euphoria after the publication of the first quarter data when most macroeconomists saw the GDP growing by 4% or even more is gone now, following the publication of the second quarter data, which point to a significant slowdown of the economic growth.
The economy grew by merely 0.1% in the second quarter compared with the first, after having grown by 1.4% in the first quarter on the fourth quarter of 2014, 0.9% in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared with the third and 1.3% in the third quarter compared with the second quarter of last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)