Analysts and businesspeople verdict: Romania stays in recession in 2010

The majority of analysts and businesspeople have revised their economic forecast down this year, after a disappointing first quarter.

Whilst businesspeople's forecasts lean towards a 2% economic decline, analysts' estimates converge towards an around 1% GDP decline this year.

The Government adopted the IMF's forecast of a 0.5% economic decline, with the Ministry of Finance to rectify the budget based on this figure.

Despite upbeat expectations at the beginning of this year, economic prospects have gradually worsened lately.

"Our previous forecast of a 0.5%-1% economic growth was based on the positive effect of demand from abroad, but the deterioration of global economic prospects, especially in Europe and the additional austerity measures to be implemented by the Government, have prompted us to revise our GDP forecast downwards - to an around 1.5% decline for 2010," says Catalina Molnar, senior economist of RBS Bank.