The higher and higher appetite for imports has pushed Romania's trade deficit above $2.5bn (2.3bn euros) in the first half of the year, up 47% from the same time in 2002.
Six months through the year, the trade balance deficit has come to 65% of the entire deficit of last year.
Against all expectations, the import growth slowed down in June, after having broken all records in May, when the import bill stood at more than $2bn.
Even so, the imports in the first half reached nearly $11bn (9.8bn euros), up 36% from the corresponding period of last year.
If expressed in euros, June's import bill totalled 1.74bn euros, 7.5% higher than in the same month of 2002, but 3.5% lower than in May 2003. If calculated in dollars, the imports progressed 33% in June over against June 2002, reaching $2.03bn.
Exports managed to maintain a minimal 0.3% growth (in euros) in June compared with May, amounting to 1.26bn euros. If looking at June 2002, they actually went down 1.8%.
This is actually why the trade deficit in June was of only 478 million euros over against 546 million euros in May.
The import slowdown alleviates the fears of such a surge in the current account deficit that it would need a serious depreciation of the ROL, which would impact on the inflation decline target, though. Only five months through the year, the current account deficit had come close to one billion euros. The imports are largely fuelled by loans, which prompted the IMF to demand steps to put a damper on the lending progress in general. The point is the highest increase in the first half was registered by mineral products (oil products, cement, and salt) - 15.8% in euros and 42.1% in dollars.
The first half data show imports of plant and equipment maintained above 20% in the total, that is 22.8% in June compared with 23.1% in May. Clothing imports come next with 16.3%. razvan.voican@zf.ro
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