Comunicat de presă


Balance of payments and external debt, January 2013

14.03.2013

In January 2013p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a surplus of EUR 465 million as compared with a deficit of EUR 25 million in January 2012, due to services going into surplus (EUR 125 million, from a deficit of EUR 105 million), the decrease in trade balance and income deficits (by EUR 163 million and EUR 31 million respectively) and the increase in current transfers surplus by EUR 66 million, primarily on account of general government net transfers.

- EUR million -
  January 2012p January 2013p
CREDIT DEBIT NET CREDIT DEBIT NET
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 4,762 4,787 -25 5,218 4,753 465
A. Goods and services 3,981 4,384 -403 4,321 4,331 -10
a. Goods (exports fob – imports fob)* 3,488 3,786 -298 3,700 3,835 -135
b. Services 493 598 -105 621 496 125
- transport 133 102 31 188 94 94
- tourism-travel 82 102 -20 91 106 -15
- other 278 394 -116 342 296 46
B. Incomes 104 215 -111 83 163 -80
C. Current transfers 677 188 489 814 259 555

p - provisional data
* Source: National Institute of Statistics (NIS) – International Trade of Goods. Imports FOB are calculated by the NBR based on the CIF/FOB conversion factor of 1.0430 set by the NIS.

Non-residents’ direct investment in Romania totalled EUR 103 million1 (as compared with EUR 18 million in January 2012), of which equity stakes consolidated with the estimated net loss amounted to EUR 102 million.

Medium- and long-term external debt at end-January 2013 stood at EUR 80,097 million (80.2 percent of total external debt), 1.7 percent above the level recorded at end-2012.

Short-term external debt at end-January 2013 totalled EUR 19,728 million (19.8 percent of total external debt), down 3.6 percent from end-2012.

Romania's external debt at end-January 2013*
and external debt service in January 2013
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January 2013p
End-2012p End-January 2013p
I. Medium- and long-term external debt 78,742 80,097 1,453
I.1. Direct public debta) o/w: 23,598 25,431 125
I.1.1. IMF borrowings 2,144 2,092 0
I.2. Publicly guaranteed debtb) 1,426 1,397 22
I.3. Non-publicly guaranteed debt 37,253 36,886 1,112
I.4. Medium- and long-term deposits of non-residents 7,810 7,941 194e
I.5. IMF borrowingsc) 8,655 8,442 0
II. Short-term external debt 20,467 19,728 2,925e
Total external debt (I+II) 99,209  99,825 4,378

*) The balance of external debt is cash-based (excluding unmatured accrued interest); the IMF’s SDR allocations are not included.
a) external loans taken directly by the Ministry of Public Finance and local governments in compliance with the legislation on public debt, including Government Emergency Ordinance No. 99/2009 ratifying the Stand-By Arrangement between Romania and the IMF;
b) external loans guaranteed by the Ministry of Public Finance and local governments in compliance with the legislation on public debt;
c) under the Stand-By Arrangement concluded with the IMF, excluding the amount received by the Ministry of Public Finance from the IMF according to Government Emergency Ordinance No. 99/2009 (item I.1.1. in the above table).
e - estimates     p - provisional data

Medium- and long-term external debt service ratio2 ran at 33.6 percent in January 2013, against 33 percent in 2012. At end-January 2013, goods and services import cover3 stood at 8.2 months, as compared with 7.2 months at end-2012.


Notes:

  1. Estimates.
  2. External debt service ratio is calculated as a ratio of medium- and long-term external debt service to exports of goods and services
  3. Import cover is calculated as a ratio of the international reserves (foreign exchange + gold) at end of period to average monthly imports of goods and services for the period under review

Balance of payments data are updated on a monthly basis; updates are available in the Interactive database.