July 19 (SeeNews) - Romania's finance ministry analysts said they have lowered their forecast for the country's 2018 economic growth to 5.5% from 6.1% based on expectations of lower than originally projected performance across sectors.
The National Prognosis Commission (CNP), an analyst unit within the finance ministry, said in a statement on Thursday that Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) would total 945 billion lei ($240 billion/203 billion euro) in 2018. The forecast compares to an estimated GDP volume of 858.7 billion lei in 2017.
Economic growth in 2018 will be backed by a slower increase - by 5.4% - in final household consumption, CNP said, revising its April forecast for a 6.3% rise. For 2017, CNP estimated an increase of 6.9% of final household consumption.
Romania's economic growth slowed to 4% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 5.7% annual growth in the like quarter of 2017, according to preliminary data of the office of national statistics, INS.
The CNP said it expects agriculture to expand by 2.4%, services by 5.6%, construction by 6.2% and industry by 5.7% in 2018. These figures compare with April forecasts for 1.9% growth of agriculture output, 6.7% rise in services, 8.2% growth in construction and 5.7% growth in industry.
Exports of goods and services are expected to grow by 8.7% in 2018, while imports are seen increasing by 9.4%, according to the latest CNP projections.
Romania's trade balance in 2018 is expected to show a deficit of 14.6 billion euro ($16.9 billion), the CNP said.
Romania's current account recorded a deficit of 3.01 billion euro in January-May, compared to a deficit of 2.606 billion euro in the year ago period.
Regarding unemployment rate, CNP expects that it will edge down to 4.8% in 2018 from an estimated 4.9% in 2017.
Romania's unemployment rate rate remained unchanged at 4.6% in May compared to the previous month, INS data showed.
The finance ministry analysts left unchanged their economic growth forecasts for the next three years made in April - at 5.7% for 2019 and 2020 each.
Earlier this month, The European Commission said that Romania’s economy is expected to expand by a real 4.1% in 2018, as compared to 4.5% growth projected earlier.
(1 euro =4.6549 Romanian lei)