Romania’s trade gap widens by 15% y/y in Q3, reversing 1.9% contraction in H1
The foreign trade in goods posted a EUR 9.06 billion deficit in the third quarter of the year (Q3), up 15.4% compared with the same period last year, according to data published by the statistics office INS.
iulian ernst · Journalist
· 1 min read
This reversed the 1.9% y/y contraction in the trade deficit recorded in H1, resulting in a 3.6% y/y expansion of the trade gap to EUR 25.5 billion. However, this does not yet threaten a deterioration in the deficit-to-GDP ratio this year.
The trade deficit as a share of GDP, calculated on a rolling four-quarter basis, stood at 8.7%, based on estimated Q3 GDP, unchanged from a year earlier. Normally, fiscal consolidation directly and households’ thinner private consumption should have stimulated a slightly narrower trade deficit, but the massive spending under the EU-funded RRF projects as well as the more expensive energy imports must have had an opposite contribution.
