Comunicat de presă


Balance of payments and external debt, March 2013

15.05.2013

In 2013 Q1p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a surplus of EUR 69 million as compared with a deficit of EUR 796 million in the first three months of 2012, due to the decrease in trade balance and income deficits (by EUR 640 million and EUR 347 million respectively) and to services going into surplus (EUR 153 million, from a deficit of EUR 79 million).

- EUR million -
  2012 Q1p 2013 Q1p
CREDIT DEBIT NET CREDIT DEBIT NET
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 14,911 15,707 -796 15,073 15,004 69
A. Goods and services 12,705 13,976 -1,271 13,220 13,619 -399
a. Goods (exports fob – imports fob)* 11,073 12,265 -1,192 11,579 12,131 -552
b. Services 1,632 1,711 -79 1,641 1,488 153
- transport 446 312 134 447 287 160
- tourism-travel 226 289 -63 241 308 -67
- other 960 1,110 -150 953 893 60
B. Incomes 297 965 -668 226 547 -321
C. Current transfers 1,909 766 1,143 1,627 838 789

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 211 million1 (as compared with EUR 360 million in January-March 2012), of which intragroup loans amounted to EUR 213 million and equity stakes consolidated with the estimated net loss posted net payments of EUR 2 million.

Medium- and long-term external debt at end-March 2013 stood at EUR 80,784 million (79.9 percent of total external debt), 2.6 percent above the level recorded at end-2012.

Short-term external debt at end-March 2013 totalled EUR 20,303 million (20.1 percent of total external debt), up 0.3 percent from end-2012.

Romania's external debt at end-March 2013*
and external debt service in 2013 Q1
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
2013 Q1p
End-2012p End-March 2013p
I. Medium- and long-term external debt 78,717 80,784 4,378
I.1. Direct public debta) o/w: 23,696 27,129 743
I.1.1. IMF borrowings 2,144 2,026 142
I.2. Publicly guaranteed debtb) 1,426 1,389 50
I.3. Non-publicly guaranteed debt 37,130 36,921 1,934
I.4. Medium- and long-term deposits of non-residents 7,810 7,425 840e
I.5. IMF borrowingsc) 8,655 7,920 811
II. Short-term external debt 20,251 20,303 6,792e
Total external debt (I+II) 98,968  101,087 11,170

*) 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 33.1 percent in the first three months of 2013, against 33.5 percent in 2012. At end-March 2013, goods and services import cover3 stood at 8.0 months, as compared with 7.1 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.