November 30 (SeeNews) - Romania's gross domestic product (GDP), computed in current prices, reached an estimated 266.6 billion lei ($111.7 billion/75.8 billion euro) in the nine months through September, up by a real 5.8% from the same period last year, the country's statistics board, INS, said on Friday.
This compared with a 7.8 % annual rise in Romania's GDP for the first nine months of 2006 reported by the INS last year. The INS did not report revised figures.
In the third quarter of 2007 alone Romania's economy grew by a real 5.7% on the year. Romania’s first-half GDP rose by a real 5.8% helped by a 31.6% increase in the construction sector and a 6.3% rise in services.
"These figures are above our expectations. We will provide updates on this issue upon receiving more data from the Romanian Statistics Institute. We expect marginal side effects over the market," BRD-SocGen's chief economist Florian Libocorin said in a market note.
The INS said in a statement it will provide details about Romania's third-quarter GDP growth by sector and by type of expenditure at a news conference on December 7.
Romania's Finance and Economy Minister Varujan Vosganian estimated in September that the country's GDP will grow by a real 6.0 to 6.5% this year.
Romania's GDP rose by 7.7% in 2006, to 342.4 billion lei. The country joined the EU in January.
(1 euro = 3.516 Romanian lei)