WB expects Romania to catch up with its peers in the region during 2023-2024

The Romanian economy will grow by 2.6% this year, according to the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects report released on January 10. This is a 1.1pp downward correction compared to the previous WB scenario sketched in July – a negative correction that was, however, milder compared to those operated for other countries in the region.

For 2024, the World Bank forecasts a 4.2% economic expansion of Romania's economy, compared to a 3.9% advance predicted in June.

As Romania is expected to outperform its peers in the region by economic growth over the coming two years, its five-year GDP growth calculated from the base year 2019 (2.5% per year on average) will surpass those of Poland (2.4%), Bulgaria (2.3%) or Hungary (2.0%) but not that of Croatia (2.7%). In 2022, all those four peers outperformed Romania when it came to the growth rate compared to the pre-Covid level (2019).

Non-EU countries such as Serbia and Turkey are expected to boast much higher annual average growth rates over the five-year period to 2024, of 2.8% and 4.9%, respectively.

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