Romania’s EUR 1.4bn commercial gap places the country on 7th position within the EU

Romania’s trade gap stood at 1.4 billion euros, following a 17 percent hike of exports in January this year compared with the same month last year, while imports rose 11 percent year-on-year.

The widest deficit was in the UK (12.1 billion euros), followed by Spain (9.1 billion euros), France (5.5 billion euros), Italy (4.1 billion euros) and Greece (2.9 billion euros).

Exports stood at 2.42 billion euros in January and imports reached 3.84 million euros, Romania’s statistics body said in an e-mail on March 11.

The spring preliminary prognosis of the Forecast Commission (CNP) estimated the commercial gap will narrow at a faster pace than indicated by previous projections, sustained by a rapid growth rhythm of exports over imports in the next six years.

In the event the CNP projections come true, 2008 will be the first time in the past six years when exports outpace imports in Romania. In 2002, exports outran imports growing at 22 percent versus 15 percent.

Eurostat also showed Bulgaria’s current account deficit is narrower than Romania’s, standing at 0.7 billion euros.

The C/A gap of the 27 EU members reached 31.2 billion euros in January 2008, versus 26 billion euros in the same month last year. The gap in the Eurozone hit 11 billion euros compared with 7.3 billion euros in January 2007.

Source: NewsIn