November 7 (SeeNews) - Romanian finance ministry analysts said they have raised their forecast for the country's 2017 economic growth to 6.1% from 5.6% based on expectations for a more robust performance across sectors than originally projected.
The National Prognosis Commission (CNP), an analyst unit within the finance ministry, said in a statement on Tuesday that Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) would total 842.5 billion lei ($213 billion/183 billion euro) in 2017. This compares to an estimated volume of 761.5 billion lei in 2016.
Economic growth in 2017 will be backed by a more rapid increase - by 7.7% - in final household consumption, CNP said, revising its September forecast for a 7.3% rise. For 2016, CNP estimated an increase of 6.9% of final household consumption.
In 2016, Romania's economy grew by 4.8% year-on-year, compared to a revised growth rate of 3.9% in 2015.
Romania's annual economic growth accelerated to 6.1% in the second quarter of 2017, above the initial estimate of 5.9% made in September, statistics office preliminary official data showed.
The CNP said it expects agriculture to grow by 3.7%, services by 6.8%, construction by 1.3% and industry by 7.7% in 2017. These figures compare with September forecasts for 3% advance in agriculture output, 5.3% rise in services, 5.6% growth in construction and 7.6% growth in industry.
Exports of goods and services are expected to grow by 9% in 2017, while imports are seen increasing by 11.5% in 2017, according to the latest CNP projections.
The trade balance for 2017 is expected to show a deficit of 12.54 billion euro ($14.9 billion), the CNP said.
Romania's trade deficit increased by 28% year-on-year to an estimated 7.88 billion euro in the first eight months of 2017
Regarding unemployment rate, CNP expects that it will fall to 5% in 2017 from an estimated 5.9% in 2016.
Romania's unemployment rate dropped to 5.0% in September from 5.1% in August, INS data showed.
The finance ministry analysts left unchanged their economic growth forecasts for the next three years made in September at 5.5% for 2018, and 5.7% for 2019 and 2020 each.
In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Romania's real GDP growth is projected to reach 5.5% in 2017 before it decelerates to 4.4% in 2018.
Also in October, Standard & Poor's maintained Romania's rating at BBB-/A-3, with a stable outlook, and said that the country's budget and trade deficits will increase due to the consumption-focused growth.
In August, Fitch Ratings affirmed its projections that Romania will post economic growth of 5.1% this year but also warned of risk of overheating.
(1 euro =4.5968 Romanian lei)