Trade, IT&C, services drive up Romania’s economic growth in first quarter

Romania’s gross domestic product (GDP) went up by 4.3% in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period of 2015, reaching RON 150 billion (EUR 33.4 billion), according to provisional data released by the National Statistics Institute (INS) on Tuesday, June 7. Retail and wholesale, transport and logistics, and hotels and restaurants had the highest contribution to the GDP growth, of 2.1 percentage points (pp). The IT&C sector brought 0.4 pp while the professional, scientific and technical activities, and support services contributed 0.3 pp to the GDP growth. The public administration and defense, education and healthcare sector also generated 0.3 pp of economic growth, as did the entertainment, culture and household services sector. Meanwhile, the economy’s biggest sector – industry only contributed 0.1 pp to the GDP growth in the first quarter. Construction, financial services, and real estate activities also generated 0.1 pp of economic growth each. The only economic sector that saw no growth was agriculture, but this is also due to its seasonality. The net taxes on products also contributed 0.5 pp to the 4.3% economic growth. From GDP uses standpoint, the increase was mainly due to the final consumption expenditure of population households whose volume increased by 10.0% contributing by 6.4 percentage points to the GDP growth rate. The gross fixed capital formation also had a contribution of 1.3 pp. The net exports, on the other hand, had a negative contribution of -3.4 pp. Romania’s economic growth accelerates to 4.3% in the first quarter editor@romania-insider.com