Comunicat de presă


Balance of Payments in January-August 2007

15.10.2007

In January-August 2007, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 10,228 million. This development can be ascribed mainly to the wider trade deficit, which amounted to EUR 10,864 million, up 69 percent from the same period of last year.

- EUR million -
  January-August 2006* January-August 2007**
CREDIT DEBIT NET CREDIT DEBIT NET
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 24,941 30,407 -5,466 30,138 40,366 -10,228
A. Goods and services 20,636 26,824 -6,188 23,670 34,384 -10,714
a. Goods (exports fob - imports fob)*** 16,963 23,391 -6,428 18,959 29,823 -10,864
b. Services 3,673 3,433 240 4,711 4,561 150
- transport 1,025 1,206 -181 1,174 1,510 -336
- tourism - travel 608 595 13 574 695 -121
- other 2,040 1,632 408 2,963 2,356 607
B. Incomes 1,088 3,134 -2,046 1,557 4,561 -3,004
C. Current transfers 3,217 449 2,768 4,911 1,421 3,490

* revised data

** provisional data

*** Source: National Institute of Statistics; imports fob are calculated based on CIF/FOB conversion coefficient of 1.0834 set by NIS.

Some 40 percent of the current account deficit were covered by inflows from foreign direct investment worth EUR 4,059 million in January-August 2007. Equity stakes and reinvested earnings accounted for 48.7 percent of the total figure, with intra-group loans1 making up for 51.3 percent.

Medium- and long-term external debt2 at end-August 2007 added 19.1 percent against end-2006 to EUR 33,872 million.

Public and publicly guaranteed external debt at end-August 2007 totalled EUR 10,329 million, accounting for 30.5 percent of medium- and long-term external debt, compared with 37.7 percent at end-2006.

Non-publicly guaranteed external debt came in at EUR 20,361 million at end-August 2007, rising 21.5 percent from year-end 2006.

Romania's medium- and long-term external debt at end-August 2007 and external debt service in January-August 2007
- EUR million -
  Medium- and long-term external debt External debt service in January-August 2007p
Balance at 31/12/2006r Balance at 31/08/2007p
1. DIRECT PUBLIC DEBTa) 6,986 6,929 680
2. PUBLICLY GUARANTEED DEBTb),
of which:
3,739 3,400 561
- public sectorc) 3,557 3,248 528
- private sectord) 182 152 33
3. NON-PUBLICLY GUARANTEED DEBT,
of which:
16,755 20,361 3,501
- public sectorc) 635 630 70
- private sectord) 16,120 19,731 3,431
4. External debt (1+2+3) 27,480 30,690 4,742
5. Medium- and long-term deposits of non-residents 966 3,182 92e
Total external debt (4+5) 28,446 33,872 4,834

a) external loans taken directly by the Ministry of Economy and Finance/local general government in compliance with the legislation on public debt

b) external loans guaranteed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance/local general government in compliance with the legislation on public debt

c) financial and non-financial corporations with majority state-owned capital

d) financial and non-financial corporations with majority private capital

r - revised data

p - provisional data

e - estimates

January through August 2007, import cover4 stood at 6.1 months versus 6.4 months at year-end 2006.


Notes:

  1. Loans between the foreign investor and the resident firm.
  2. External debt balance is subject to monthly revision.
  3. External debt service ratio is computed as a ratio of medium- and long-term external debt service to exports of goods and services.
  4. Import cover is computed as a ratio of official reserves of the NBR (foreign exchange + gold) at end of period