Romania's economy slows down to 1.4% y/y in January-September

Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 1.4% y/y in January-September, slowing down from 4.7% in 2022 and still below the government's updated 2% projection.

The government hopes all major sectors will perform better in 2024 and later, except for construction – which already demonstrates robust performance.

The GDP growth was revised to 1.1% y/y from 0.2% y/y (flash estimate) for Q3 – when agriculture is indicated as the main growth driver (+0.8 percentage points of the 1.1% y/y growth), although the low prices wouldn't have suggested such an outcome.

The growth was driven in the first three quarters of 2023 mainly by three sectors – constructions (+7.4% y/y), IT&C (+4.6% y/y) and agriculture (+5.0% y/y) – that contributed 0.3 percentage points (pp) each. The domestic demand for consumption and particularly investments are advancing faster, but the country imported less: 4% of total domestic demand, from 7% in the first three quarters of 2022.

On the GDP formation side, most of the categories of services (to households, companies and real estate) have also advanced, making significant contributions in the first three quarters of the year. The financial intermediation marked a marginal contraction.

On the downside, the value added generated by the industry (mining, quarrying and utilities included besides manufacturing) contracted by 2.7% y/y with a significant negative 0.6pp contribution.

On the GDP utilisation side, private consumption increased by 2.2% y/y, and the gross fixed capital formation surged by 10.7% y/y.

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