The country’s gross domestic product growth rate is expected to accelerate to 2.4% in 2026, assuming increased absorption of EU funds. In its May 2025 Regional Economic Outlook report, the EBRD left its forecast for next year unchanged from February.
Romania’s GDP growth slows to 0.8% in 2024 from 2.4% in 2023.
“Although private consumption grew substantially on the back of an 8% rise in real wages, this led to a significant widening of the trade deficit,” the paper said. – Investment slowed significantly, especially in the last quarter, as the absorption of EU funds slowed. And it was widespread: industry, services and construction showed a marked drop in pace, while agriculture was hit hard by the drought”.
The bank also noted that Romania’s financial situation remains challenging and that additional measures are likely to be needed this year to implement consolidation plans following worse-than-expected results in 2024.
Romania’s consolidated budget in 2024 had a deficit equivalent to 8.65% of GDP, widening from a gap of 5.61% a year earlier and exceeding both the original target of 5% and the revised target of 6.9%. In the first three months of 2025, the country’s consolidated budget deficit widened to 43.66 billion Romanian lei ($9.527 billion 8.562 billion euros) from 35.88 billion lei in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, despite a slight slowdown, inflation is still high at nearly 5%, requiring a tight monetary policy from the central bank, EBRD analysts advised.
“Romania’s economy has limited exposure to the US economy, but it has a significant level of integration into global automotive supply chains, which is a vulnerability,” the European lender added.
Recall that in the same report, the EBRD reduced the forecast for Moldova’s economic growth in 2025 to 1.8%, but this is still 0.2 p.p. higher than for Romania.
