Specialists Reveal Grim Economic Outlook

The U.S. economy, the origin of the current financial crisis, is showing the first signs of recovery, according to a report released by the International Monetary Funds a few days ago. Concurrently, the U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday released an estimate indicating that the gross domestic product had only shrunk by 1% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009, following a 6.4% collapse in the first quarter.

In Romania, the economic decline in April-June 2009 will exceed the level recorded in the first quarter of the year, according to several economic analysts, who believe that the situation will repeat in the third quarter, too. "Our basic scenario points to a 7.5% contraction of the GDP in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the third quarter of 2008. The figure is similar to the result of the calculations for the second quarter," said Ionut Dumitru, Chief Economist of Raiffeisen Bank, who believes that the rate of the economic decline will only decrease in the fourth quarter, when the GDP is expected to lose 4-4.5%. Dumitru believes that the annual economic decline will be approximately 6%.

Economic analyst Aurelian Dochia is a bit more pessimistic, as he sees the counter-performance of the Romanian economy materialize in a 7% GDP decline. "I think that the GDP will plunge to the lowest depth in the third quarter of this year: more than (-)7% from the corresponding period of last year. Any economy is slower in summertime," he added.

The first signs of recovery will become visible in the last quarter of the year, when the rate of economic decline will improve, Dochia said, as an effect of stronger recovery signes in the Western economies and the "stock effect" (i.e. in crisis time, companies reduce production in order to avoid stockpiling and sell until stocks are almost zero; at such time, production is resumed - in the last months of 2009 in this case).

In turn, Ilie Serbanescu said: "The recovery of our economy will take place whenever foreign capital owners want to. The Government and the World Bank do not have any levers of influence anymore. Our economy is currently run by the IMF. However, I don"t know whether this international financial organization is going to manage to counteract the decline of the GDP, because such course of events would conflict with private foreign capital."

Most analysts tend to agree that an improvement of the general condition of the Romanian economy could be triggered by the good performance of the automotive industry and the related industries.