Romania’s economy grew 0.3% in real terms in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
Almost all industries contributed to the GDP increase in Q1 2020 as against Q1 2019. Significant positive contributions had the following industries: Wholesale and retail; motor-vehicles and motorcycles repair; transport and storage; hotels and restaurants (+1.1%), with a share of 21.0% in GDP, whose activity volume increased by 5.5%; – Information and communication (+0.9%), with a share in GDP of 7.0%, which recorded an increase in activity volume by 14.1%; – Construction (+0.8%), with a share in GDP of 4.0%, which recorded an increase in activity volume by 23.3%; – Professional, scientific and technical activities; activities of administrative services and support services (+0.7%), with a share in GDP of 7.6%, which recorded an increase in activity volume by 10.4%.
Negative contributions were recorded for Industry (-1.2%), with a share in GDP of 19.6%, which recorded an increase in activity volume by 5.9%; net taxes on products (-0.1%), with a share in GDP of 8.1%, which recorded an increase in their volume by 0.7%.
From GDP uses standpoint, the increase was mainly due to final consumption expenditure of households, whose volume increased by 3.8% contributing by 2.5 to the GDP growth rate; gross fixed capital formation, whose volume increased by 5.9% contributing by 0.9 to the GDP growth rate.
The net export recorded a negative contribution to the GDP growth rate (-3.2%) being influenced by the increase of imports of goods and services volume, by 0.8%, in correlation with the decrease of the volume of exports of goods and service, by 5.5%.