January 30 (SeeNews) - Romania's finance ministry analysts said on Wednesday they expect the country's economy to grow by 5.5% this year, confirming their earlier forecast.
Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) would total 1.02 trillion lei ($246 billion/215 billion euro) in 2019, the National Prognosis Commission (CNP), an analyst unit within the finance ministry, said in its winter forecast
Economic growth will be backed by a 5.9% increase in final household consumption, CNP said.
Industry is expected to expand by 5.4%, agriculture by 1.9%, construction by 7.2% and services by 5.9% in 2019.
Exports of goods and services are expected to increase by 6.9% in 2019, while imports are seen growing by 7.8%, according to the latest CNP projections.
Romania's government plans to release the first budget draft for 2019 by the end of this week.
For 2018, the finance ministry analysts said they expect economic growth of 4.5%, the same rate of increase forecast in November.
Romania's economic growth slowed to 4.4% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2018, from 8.8% in the like period of 2017, according to non-adjusted provisional data released by the country's statistical office.
Romania's economy expanded by 6.9% year-on-year in 2017.
(1 euro = 4.7555 Romanian lei)