Romania’s trade deficit widened 14.36 percent to 6.9 billion euros in the first four months of the year against the same period last year, as higher salaries allowed people to buy more imports, the country’s statistics institute INS said.
- Publicitate -
In April 2008 exports totalized 10.04 billion lei and imports reached 17.45 billion lei, according to estimates of INS. Exports rose 37.5 percent in April year-on-year and imports advanced 36.5 percent.
Salaries in Romania advanced significantly in the past year which couple with the recent lending boom gave people access to buying more imported merchandise. However, the fall of leu helped exports rise too.
Exports in the first four months of the year reached 39.53 billion lei and imports stood at 64.91 billion lei. The trade gap in the first four months this year was 5.01 billion lei wider than in the same period last year.
Cars and transportation equipment were the most traded merchandise in the first four months, 34 percent exports and 37.5 percent imports.
The commercial gap in the first quarter was of 17.84 billion lei, a 2.96 billion lei increase than in the same period last year while in March imports outpaced exports 7 percent.
Exports in March reached 9.97 billion lei, a 12.4 percent increase year-on-year and imports hiked to 17.09 billion lei after 19.4 percent growth over the same month last year.
However, the growth pace of exports could outpace imports in 2008 for the first time in the past six years, which would pave the way to a shrinking of the trade gap in the gross domestic product, according to estimates of the country’s Forecast Commission (CNP).
Romania’s commercial deficit has widened heavily in the past few years on rising imports and consumption spurred by rising wages and lending boom. The foreign deficit widened from 7.5 percent of the GDP in 2004, to 13 percent last year.
The trade deficit is the main component of the current account deficit which widened in the first quarter to 3.52 billion euros from 3.17 billion euros from the year before.
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