The IMF, rating agencies and bank analysts are all revisingestimates about this year's economic growth to less than 1%, aftera weak first quarter, whose figures suggest Romania is still inrecession.
Romania started 2010 as optimistic as it did last year when theauthorities denied having slipped into recession, but the latestfigures about decline in industry, construction and trade inFebruary upset the initial optimistic forecasts.
The most abrupt economic growth forecast revisions in 2010 comefrom BCR/Erste and ING, which had anticipated a 1.9% growth of theGDP until recently, only to suggest a 0.9% now, that is one percentless.
BCR analysts believe the economy went down 0.5% in the firstquarter compared with the last quarter of 2009, with the declinepartly offset by exports, but warn that a rebound cannot comeunless domestic demand picks up.
Lucian-Liviu Albu, doctor of economics, says that the firstquarter proved expectations of Romania's exit from the crisiswrong.
Most economic analysts were disappointed by the industrialoutput, trade and construction figures in February, which continuedto go down. As a result, they believe Romania was still inrecession in the first quarter, with expectations of a reboundmoving to the second quarter.
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