Romania’s annual inflation rate registered at the end of December (4.7 per cent) was the second highest in the EU and more than three times higher than the EU average of 1.4 per cent, the Eurostat data published on Friday show. At the same time, the Euro Zone registered an inflation of 0.9 per cent, the report published on Friday confirming the preliminary data previously issued by the EU’s Eurostat. Hungary’s inflation rate (5.4 per cent) was the highest in the EU at the end of 2009, with Poland’s inflation rate (3.8 per cent) being third. Poland was the only EU member state that did not enter a recession. The lowest annual inflation rates were registered in Ireland (-2.6 per cent), Estonia (-1.9 per cent) and Latvia (-1.4 per cent). Last year Romania registered the highest average inflation rate in the EU (5.6 per cent), while the EU average stood at 1 per cent.
The same Eurostat data show that Romania registered a trade deficit of EUR 7.9 bln in the first ten months of last year following one of the steepest import drops among member states. The trade deficit was the sixth largest in the EU. The 36 per cent drop in imports registered from January to October places Romania third in the EU, in a tie with Estonia, while Romania’s exports registered one of the lowest drops. Against the backdrop of the recession the trade deficit shrank to EUR 7.9 bln in the first ten months of 2009, down from EUR 20.3 bln in the same period of 2008. The imports dropped from EUR 49.3 bln to EUR 31.8 bln, while the exports dropped from EUR 29.2 bln to EUR 23.9 bln. As usual, the highest trade deficit was registered by Great Britain (EUR 77.9 bln), while Germany reported the highest trade surplus (over EUR 105 bln).
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