Romania’s economic growth will be somewhere between 0-1% and further acceleration in 2026 remains unclear, Fiscal Council head Daniel Dăianu said in a conference, as quoted by Economica.net. He toned down extreme pessimistic scenarios, such as those expressed by BRD-SocGen’s chief economist, Florian Libocor.
Libocor, in a conference this week, nearly ridiculed those still expecting economic growth this year, saying the country’s GDP would drop by 6% this year (versus an official estimate of 0.6% growth) and plunge by as much as 2% in 2026.
“I saw the chief economist of a large bank in Romania talking about negative growth both this year and next year. (…) Anyway, it won’t be a spectacular growth if it happens. There’s no way. We’ll have growth this year between 0 and 1%. And next year it remains to be seen whether it will be higher than this year,” said Daniel Dăianu, at the sixth edition of the Banking Forum event, organized by Financial Intelligence.
Romania’s economic growth has slowed down to 0.9% y/y in 2024, and the infra–annual (quarterly) data show a 1.5% y/y advance in H1 this year. However, a large part of the growth was driven in both Q1 and Q2 this year (as well as in H2 last year) by the contribution of “net taxes and subsidies on products,” signifying either a rise in tax revenues (not confirmed by budget execution) or (more likely) fewer subsidies.
This may have been the effect of the cap-and-subsidy energy price scheme operated by the government over the past several years, with a profoundly negative impact on the market’s transparency and efficiency.
Out of 0.6% y/y GDP growth in Q1, the contribution of net taxes and subsidies was 0.55pp. In Q2, the net taxes and subsidies contributed 1.4pp to the 2.5% y/y growth. The contribution of gross value added to the GDP growth was marginal in Q1 but more consistent (1.1pp) in Q2, after it was negative in H2 last year.
Industry in H2 last year and Q1 this year, and agriculture in Q3 last year, made the main negative contributions.
iulian@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: Inquam Photos/George Calin)
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