Romanian prime minister Florin Citu announced "record amounts invested in the economy" and "record revenues" for the first four months of this year.

"After four months, we have again record amounts invested [by the Government] in the economy and record revenues. You will see when the figures are officially published," Citu said on Tuesday, Hotnews.ro reported.

The budget execution figures for January-April will be released just after May 25.

The budget revenues soared by 19% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period of 2020 (and by 15% compared to the same period of 2019).

Part of the performance came from the tax payments deferred by companies during 2020 under a Government facility that expired at the beginning of 2021. The deferred tax payments were rescheduled for 2021, and this is why the revenues are likely to remain strong through the year, particularly when compared to 2020 revenues.

Among other things, this explains why the fiscal consolidation under ESA methodology (that measure accrued revenues and expenditures) will be much smaller this year compared to 2020 (from 9.2% to 8.2% of GDP) while the cash-based consolidation will look much more impressive: from 9.8% of GDP in 2020 to around 7% of GDP in 2021.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gov.ro)