Comunicat de presă


Balance of payments and external debt, January 2012

13.03.2012

In January 2012p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 37 million, 73.4 percent lower than in the same year-ago period, due mainly to the increase in current transfers surplus and the decrease in income deficit.

- EUR million -
  January 2011r January 2012p
CREDIT DEBIT NET CREDIT DEBIT NET
CURRENT ACCOUNT (A+B+C) 4,423 4,562  -139 4,798 4,835 -37
A. Goods and services 3,906 3,990 -84 4,030 4,346 -316
a. Goods (exports fob – imports fob)s 3,417 3,479 -62 3,465 3,766 -301
b. Services 489 511 -22 565 580 -15
- transport 143 88 55 179 104 75
- tourism-travel 67 87 -20 82 101 -19
- other 279 336 -57 304 375 -71
B. Incomes 108 363 -255 103 307 -204
C. Current transfers 409 209 200 665 182 483

r  - revised data
p - provisional data
s  - Source: National Institute of Statistics (NIS) - International Trade of Goods. Imports FOB are calculated by the NBR based on the CIF/FOB conversion coefficient set by the NIS. Starting January 2012, the former CIF/FOB conversion coefficient of 1.0834 will be replaced by the new coefficient of 1.0430. In order to ensure imports FOB data comparability, the monthly data series for 2010 and 2011 have been recalculated accordingly.

Non-residents’ direct investment in Romania worth EUR 23 million1 (as compared with EUR 376 million in January 2011) covered 62.2 percent of the curent account deficit in January 2012. Out of the total figure, equity stakes consolidated with the estimated net loss amounted to EUR 130 million and intra-group loans2 posted net payments of EUR 107 million.

Medium- and long-term external debt at end-January 2012 stood at EUR 75,143 million (77.2 percent of total external debt), 0.6 percent below the level recorded at end-2011.

Short-term external debt at end-January 2012 totalled EUR 22,202 million (22.8 percent of total external debt), down 3.4 percent from end-2011.

Romania's external debt at end-January 2012*
and external debt service in January 2012
- EUR million -
  External debt External debt service
January 2012p
End-2011r End-January 2012p
I. Medium- and long-term external debt 75,612 75,143 783
I.1. Direct public debta) 19,516 19,264 158
I.2. Publicly guaranteed debtb) 1,509 1,492 17
I.3. Non-publicly guaranteed debt 35,904 36,115 358
I.4. Medium- and long-term deposits of non-residents 8,452 8,095 250e
I.5. IMF borrowingsc) 10,231 10,177 0
II. Short-term external debt 22,994 22,202 3,374e
Total external debt (I+II) 98,606  97,345 4,157

*) The balance of external debt is cash-based (excluding unmatured accrued interest); the IMF’s SDR allocations are not included.
a) external loans taken directly by the Ministry of Public Finance and local general government in compliance with the legislation on public debt, including Government Emergency Ordinance 99/2009 ratifying the Stand-by Arrangement between Romania and the IMF;
b) external loans guaranteed by the Ministry of Public Finance and local general government in compliance with the legislation on public debt;
c) under the Stand-by Arrangement concluded with the IMF, excluding the amount received by the Ministry of Public Finance from the IMF according to Government Emergency Ordinance 99/2009.
e - estimates     p - provisional data     r - revised data

Medium- and long-term external debt service ratio3 ran at 19.4 percent in January 2012, against 27.9 percent in 2011. At end-January 2012, goods and services import cover4 stood at 8.5 months, as compared to 7.5 months at end-2011.


Notes:

  1. Estimated data
  2. Loans between parent company and its resident branch.
  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 the NBR's official reserves (foreign exchange + gold) at end of period to average monthly imports of goods and services for the period under review.