BNR's Isarescu: Romania imports large quantities of pork; swine fever's impact not considered in inflation

Romania imported large quantities of pork last year and it is importing from Poland and Hungary, but the new concern related to the African swine fever has not yet been introduced in inflation calculations, says the Governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR), Mugur Isarescu. 

"From our data (...) for now food prices are real. You refer to the new concern related to the [African] swine fever. We have not introduced it yet into our calculations to see what the impact will be," Isarescu said at the presentation conference of the Inflation Report. 

Pork has been staying for years at the top of imported agri-food products, and last year alone Romania spent over 475 million euros on this segment, according to data with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

In the first four months of this year, Romania imported meat and meat products worth 268.4 million euros, up almost 210.6pct over the same period of 2017, according to the data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics.