Austrian group Erste, which owns Romania’s second-largest bank – BCR, revised downwards its forecast for Romania’s economic growth this year after the second-quarter GDP data came below the group’s estimates.

In the second quarter, Romania’s GDP went up by 1.8% compared with the previous quarter and by 13% versus Q2 2020.

Bloomberg’s median estimates for Romania’s economic growth in the second quarter were 2% and 14.5%.

Erste’s analysts now expect Romania to record 7.4% economic growth this year after raising their target from 6.7% to 8% one week earlier.

“After the large data revisions and even assuming a good agriculture year, we need to revise down our full-year GDP growth projection to 7.4% y/y, after we just upgraded it last week to 8.0% from 6.7% previously,” Erste analysts commented.

Meanwhile, ING Bank maintained its 7.5% growth target for Romania’s economy in 2021 and the 5.0% estimate for 2022.

“Risks for this year growth remain mildly skewed to the upside, but to a lesser extent than before today’s flash data,” said ING’s chief economist in Romania, Valentin Tataru.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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