March 30 (SeeNews) - Romania should see a return of confidence over the coming months after it posted the first drop in sentiment in two years, ING Reseach analysts said on Wednesday.
In the first quarter of this year, Romania’s Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) stood at 102.8 points, down by 1.1 points compared with the end 2015, with all major components having a negative impact on the indicator.
Most likely, this weakness had a lot to do with the global growth concerns story at the start of the year, but these fears have been abating recently, the analysts said in a daily note.
"For the moment, we do not see imminent dangers to our growth estimate for 2016 of 4.2%, while the soft ESI suggests near-term risks might be skewed rather to the downside," they commented.
ING also reconfirmed its estimates for GDP growth in first quarter at 1.1% quarter-on-quarter and 3.8% year-on-year.
These externally driven downward pressures should be mitigated by the strong consumption-driven growth, amid brisk wage growth and lending acceleration, they added.
"We underscore that given the strong internally driven GDP growth, it would take some time, at least two quarters before a major weakening external backdrop would adversely impact the domestic economic activity to a greater extent," the analysts concluded.