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Agriculture can have a major contribution to economic growth estimated by World Bank for Romania
Agriculture can make a major contribution to the economic growth of 1.7 percent in 2013, as estimated by the World Bank / WB / in its latest EU11 Regular Economic Report made public on Thursday, Catalin Pauna, economist of the World Bank in Romania, told AGERPRES.
'If we put agriculture aside, let's say last year, when we had 0.7 percent, the economic growth was almost 2 percent. In conditions in which, let's say, we have an average agricultural year, even above average, it's actually hard to believe that we'll have a year like 2012, which was among the worst. Agriculture can contribute by 0.6-0.7 percent, even 0.8 percent to the GDP, the same as in 2011. Given a symmetry versus last year of 0.7 percent, plus 0.7 percent, it would be 1.4 percent only from agriculture (...) To be honest, I would not exclude an economic growth higher than 1.7 percent this year. The 1.7 percent is a basic scenario and is affected by the fact that, perhaps, we have a recession in the euro area in 2013, as well ', Pauna stressed.
According to the World Bank official, Romania is pretty well positioned among the large countries, but it needs to address problems that keep to the structural reforms in key areas.
'Among the largecountries, we hold a pretty good position. The problem is long-term, because, if you look at the entire year, our projection is about 2.2 percent. Or, for a country like Romania, the problems are structural reforms: what happens to efficiency of investments in the public sector, in energy, in transport, absorption of EU funds. If you look at two revealing indicators, on the first four months, industrial production is more than 6 percent higher than in the equivalent period last year. Basically, it is a robust growth of industrial production, also linked to exports, although in the first four months they rose by around 4 percent in euro terms. Exports move pretty well in conditions in which, probably, there is still a recession in the euro area. This happens especially in the area of exports to non-euro zone, to Russia, Turkey, China', the economist explained.
The World Bank slightly improved its growth forecast for Romania's economy this year, to 1.7 percent from 1.6 percent, as estimated in January, according to EU11 Regular Economic Report, made public on Thursday.
Last year, Romania registered an estimated 0.7 percent economic progress.