Romania’s gross domestic product grew by 1.9% in the third quarter compared with the previous three-month period, a significant U-turn after a 0.3% decline in the second quarter, a flash estimate from the country’s statistics institute INS showed Friday.
Compared with the third quarter of 2013, Romania’s GDP increased 3.3% in seasonally-adjusted data, and 3.2% in unadjusted data.
The statistics institute revised GDP data for the first two quarters, and the figures are better than previously seen.
New data show the economy grew 0.5% in the January-March period compared with the previous three months, which means Romania was not in technical recession, as previously thought. Earlier releases pointed to a 0.1% contraction in the first quarter. The decline in the second quarter was also revised to 0.3% from 0.9% previously estimated.
In the first nine months, Romania’s economy grew 2.8% compared with the same period of 2013. In seasonally-adjusted data, the GDP growth was 3.1% for January-September.
The first estimates for the third quarter GDP are better than the figures included in the European Commission’s autumn forecast at the beginning of November. The Commission predicted a 1% growth for the third quarter, while cutting its GDP forecast for the full year to 2% in 2014 from 2.5% previously expected.