Romania's trade deficit widens 2.8% y/y in January 2008, reaching EUR 1.41bn

Romania’s trade gap, or the deficit of exports versus imports, stood at 1.41 billion euros in January, widening 2.8 percent against the same month of the previous year, the National Statistics Institute (INS) shows.

Exports totalized 8.87 billion lei (2.42 billion euros) in January 2008. Imports stood at 14.05 billion lei. This leads to a 5.17 billion lei trade gap, 10.52 percent wider than in January 2007.

Exports rose 25.8 percent (16.9 percent for values calculated in euro) year-on-year and 11.1 percent month-on-month in January while imports saw a 19.7 percent yearly hike and a 9.2 percent monthly drop. January was the second month in a row when exports outpaced imports.

Trades within the European bloc stood at 6.37 billion lei in January. Cars and transportation equipment represented 33 percent of the total exports and 37.7 percent of imports. Other handmade products stood at 42.1 percent of exports and 29.9 percent of imports.

Exports could exceed imports this year for first time after 2002 leading to the narrowing of the trade deficit, estimates of the National Forecast Commission (CNP) show.

Exports could advance 17.4 percent against last year to 34.5 billion euros while imports are estimated to slow down to 58.8 billion euros (15.6 percent). Imports calculated in free on board prices (FOB) could totalize 54.28 billion euros this year.

This year, monthly exports will exceed 3 billion euros first time in five months (March, July, September, October and November), CNP said. So far, the biggest monthly exports were seen in October last year (2.82 billion euros).

CNP revised upwards estimates for 2008 following fall prognosis which anticipated a 18.1 percent hike of imports to 60.8 billion euros.

NewsIn