Liviu Voinea: Despite slowdown, Romanian economy on track for targeted 2.8 year-end advance

Despite the slowdown registered in Q2 in its growth pace, Romania's economy is still on track for the 2.8 percent year-end growth target the state budget is built upon, Minister-delegate for Budget Liviu Voinea told AGERPRES on Thursday.

"The all-year target is an economic growth of 2.8 percent. In H1 we have an increase of 2.4 percent in raw terms and of 2.6 percent in adjusted terms, which is even slightly higher than the one registered in mid-2013. We ended last year with an economic growth of 3.5 percent. We are on track for the 2.8 percent all-year increase the budget is built upon," said Voinea.

The Minister-delegate for Budget mentioned that there has been a change in the structure of economic growth, with agriculture now having a negative contribution to the advance of economy, contrary to last year, when it had substantially pushed forward the GDP growth.

"Instead, consumption now has a positive contribution, after the stagnation last year. Industrial output and exports also have positive contributions. The quarterly evolution is not that important because it is influenced by seasonal, short-term factors, it's the annualized economic growth rate that really matters. We have an economic growth of 2.4 percent, which is a very good rate above the euro zone and the EU average. The economic growth pace has slowed down in comparison with, say, Q1. But this is not a decline, it's just a slowdown in the growth pace," said Liviu Voinea.

The Finance Ministry official said that the economic growth could pick up speed in the second half of 2014 as a result of the fiscal space the authorities have to maneuver.

"The six-month budget deficit was 0.5 percent of GDP, and seven-month preliminary data suggest a budget...