Romania’s Economic Sentiment Index at post-crisis high

Romania's economic sentiment indicator (ESI), an indicator calculated by Eurostat that measures the sentiment of companies and households as regards the current state of the economy, as well as their expectations, continued to grow slightly in March and reached the highest level since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

ESI rose by 0.5 points from 90.8 in February to 91.3 in March.

Romania's ESI hadn't exceeded this level since March 2020, when it stood at 100.6 (revised data), Profit.roreported.

The improvement was dwarfed (and possibly driven) by the bullish sentiment across whole Europe.

Notably, no consumer confidence sub-index was available for Romania in March, as GfK Romania discontinued its services provided for the calculations of ESI.

Among the other sectors, the most considerable improvement, of 2.1 points (to -16.8 points), was in the services sector. In construction, the indicator increased by 1.3 points. In industry and retail, the evolution of the indicator was negative.

For the whole European Union, ESI soared by an impressive 7.6 points from 93.4 in February to 101 in March, exceeding the expectations expressed by surveys carried by Reuters and Bloomberg.

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