The figure matches the one advanced last month by President Traian Basescu, who said the economy had performed better than expected in 2011, owing to a bumper harvest and higher exports.
Official forecasts put the economic growth at around 2% in 2011.
The fourth-quarter gross domestic product shrank by 0.2% in seasonally adjusted data compared with a quarter earlier, INS data showed.
Compared with the fourth quarter of 2010, Romania’s GDP increased by 1.9% in the last three months of 2011. In unadjusted data, the annual growth was 2.1%.
The statistics institute is due to release a detailed report on the fourth-quarter GDP on March 6.