Financial rating agency Standard & Poor's has lowered its long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating to "BB+" from "BBB" and to "B" from "A-" for short-term foreign currency sovereign credit. The outlook is negative in both cases.
On the other hand, the National Forecasting Commission has revised the estimates concerning 2009 economic growth downwards, from 6.5 percent to 6 percent, and anticipates a slowdown for every sector, given the international turmoil. Up until this autumn, most forecasts made every six months would be revised upwards.
"This is slight revision influenced by the international context and by an increased caution. We used multi-annual averages a lot to eliminate potential sources of imbalance in the supply-demand ratios and the potential inflationary pressures," CNP chairman Ion Ghizdeanu told ZF.
He explained that growth of the economy had multi-annual trends to avoid surprises from forecasts.
The Romanian economy sped up this year, performing in stark contrast with the economies in the euro zone that signalled that they had entered recession a few months ago. The economic growth in the first half stood at 8.8 percent compared with the same time last year; the yearend estimate is equally optimistic, of 9.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, given that the second half of the year usually has a greater contribution to the GDP formation. The analysts believe that CNP's adjustment of the economic growth is not substantial enough considering the risks related to financing and lending.
"Uncertainty is the word that best describes next year. Deviations can be very high. The main elements with an important impact on the GDP progress are the slowdown of lending and the recession in the euro zone. The growth pace of lending could go down from about 50 percent to 20 percent," says Ionut Dumitru, chief
