Romania's economy advances 2.4pct in Q1 2020 mainly on household consumption

The annual growth of Romania's economy in the first quarter of 2020 - 2.4% unadjusted and 2.7% when seasonally adjusted series, was mainly due to the household final consumption expenditure, which volume increased by 3.8%, contributing 2.5% to GDP growth, according to provisional data with the National Institute of Statistics (INS) released on Tuesday.

Investment contributed 0.9% to the GDP growth, and exports continued to make a negative contribution of minus 3.2%.

"From the point of view of GDP use, the increase was mainly due to: household final consumption expenditure, which volume increased by 3.8%, contributing 2.5% to GDP growth; gross fixed capital formation, which volume increased by 5.9%, contributing 0.9% to GDP growth; a negative contribution to GDP growth was net exports (-3.2%), as a consequence of an 0.8% increase in the volume of imports of goods and services, as against a reduction of the volume of exports of goods and services by 5.5%,"according to the provisional data regarding Romania's GDP growth in Q1 2020.

Compared with Q4 2019, the Q1 2020 Gross Domestic Product was up 0.3% in real terms. Compared with the same quarter of 2019, the Gross Domestic Product increased by 2.4% unadjusted and by 2.7% when seasonally adjusted.

The seasonally adjusted Q1 2020 GDP was 272.415 billion lei current prices, up 0.3% in real terms compared with Q4 2019 and rising by 2.7% from Q1 2019.

Unadjusted, the estimated Q1 2020 GDP was 216.264 billion lei current prices, up 2.4% in real terms from Q1 2019.

Almost all branches of the economy contributed to the GDP growth in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the first quarter of 2019, with more important positive contributions having been brought by wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; transport and storage; hotels and restaurants (+ 1.1%), with a share of 21.0% in the GDP formation where activity volume increased by 5.5%; information and communications (+ 0.9%), with a share of 7.0% in the GDP formation where there was an increase in activity volume by 14.1%; construction (+ 0.8%), with a share of 4.0% in the formation of the GDP, where the volume of activity was up 23.3%; professional, scientific and technical activities; administrative and support service activities (+ 0.7%), with a share of 7.6% in the formation of the GDP which volume of activity increased by 10.4%.

Negative contributions were registered by: industry (-1.2%), with a share of 19.6% in the formation of the GDP, where the activity volume shrank by 5.9%; net tax on products (-0.1%), with a share of 8.1% in the formation of the GDP, where volume declined 0.7%.