FDI, up nearly 36 pct in January-February period in 2014

The first two months of the year have seen a 35.6 percent year-on-year advance in terms of foreign direct investments (FDI) in Romania, totaling 282 million euro, according to a report released by Romania’s Central bank (BNR).

Of the 282 million euro, equity stakes consolidated with the estimated net loss came to about 375 million, whilst the intra-group loans recorded a negative value of 93 million euro.

Although there is a significant improvement compared to the similar period in 2013, a major drop is visible in February over January 2014. In the first month of the year FDI reached 244 million euro, whereas in February figures fell to 38 million euro.

Also, at two months in 2014, the balance-of-payment current account posted a deficit of 102 million euro, following a surplus of 388 million euro in January. In the corresponding period of the previous year, the balance-of-payment current account was of 177 million euro, thus, according to the BNR’s informing, the increasing deficit is due to the increase in income deficit (by 195 million euro) and trade deficit (by 28 million euro), as well as the decrease in current transfers surplus (by 86 million euro).

Last year FDI hit the maximum of the past four years – 2.71 billion euro - after a growth of almost 27 percent, confirming the positive evolution mostly seen in the second half of the year when exports actually boomed. 

The high-record level in terms of foreign direct investments was reached in 2008 - almost 9.5 billion euro. Since then, the economic crisis has strongly affected these investments volume which have decreased year-on-year.

The other year, 2012, was the first signal of emerging from the turmoil the investment sector has been passing through for the past years, the FDI turning on an upward trend, after a significant growth over 2011 – the FDI reached nearly 2.14 billion euro in 2012, whereas with a year ago, it totaled only 1.8 billion euro.