PSD: Release on economic growth in 2019 confirms good results recorded during Social-Democrat governance

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) believes that the National Institute of Statistics (INS) release regarding the economic growth of 4.1 percent in 2019 confirms the good results recorded by Romania during the Social-Democrat governance, and the political crisis created by "the obsession for early elections" of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and that of President Klaus Iohannis "might determine Romania's entry into recession" during 2020.

"The Social Democratic Party believes that Friday's release of the National Institute of Statistics regarding the economic growth of 4.1 percent in 2019 confirms the good economic results registered by Romania during the PSD governance. According to the data available published by EUROSTAT, our country ranks 2nd in the EU ranking regarding the economic growth rate in 2019. On the other hand, there are serious reasons to ask ourselves whether 2019 will also be Romania's last year of economic growth? After the PNL came to power, several macro-economic indicators have suddenly deteriorated, and the political crisis created by PNL's and President Iohannis's obsession for early elections might determine Romania's entry into recession in 2020," a PSD release sent to AGERPRES informs.

The Social-Democrats also maintained that, in the last two months of the previous year, under the PNL governance, "there was a true debauchery of public expenses (9 million in addition), in the context of the sudden drop of budget revenues (from +12.4 percent in the first 10 months to -5 percent after the PNL Government came to power)", and within the 3 months of governance, the PNL borrowed "10 million euro, four times more than the PSD."

"Because of that, the PNL Government increased the budget deficit in 2019 from 2.8 percent to 4.6 percent, exceeding the acceptable threshold of 3 percent and, thus, determining Romania's entry into the excessive deficit procedure. Last, but not least, the freezing of pensions and salaries, and the irresponsible statements of the Finance Minister regarding a possible economic crisis acted as a handbrake which suddenly slowed down Romania's economic growth. At the same time, two main engines of the Romanian economy have stopped: industry, which registers massive decreases and agriculture, affected by the lack of measures from the government to compensate the losses of farmers due to this year's atypical winter. In this economic context marked by uncertainties and imbalances, the only motivation that can be behind the PNL's obsession to trigger early elections is to get the citizens' vote before the austerity comes. Early elections = Austerity," the PSD release argues.

The Romanian economy slowed down to 4.1 percent last year, after 4.4 percent in 2018 and 7.1 percent in 2017, show flash estimates released by the National Institute of Statistics on Friday.

The GDP advance in Q4 2019 from the previous quarter was 1.5 percent, while growth in the third quarter was 0.6 percent QoQ.

Compared to the similar period of 2018, economic growth was 4.3 percent as unadjusted series and 4.2 percent as seasonally adjusted series.

In November 2019 the National Strategy and Prognosis Commission revised downwards its estimates for the 2019 economic growth to near 4 percent from 5.5 percent in its Spring Forecast, taking into account the sectoral statistical data of the national accounts available for H1 2019.