After a year of double-digit interest rates on savings, Romanians had bank deposits equivalent to 1,095 euros on average, whilst Hungarians had three times more in savings, the Czechs had five times as much, while people in Poland had 2.5 times higher savings, i. e. 2,519 euros, according to a ZF analysis.
Romania's saving ability is lower both because of lower net incomes, and because employees account for just 29% of the overall population, whilst in all the other countries analysed the employees account for over 32% of the overall population, and for 56% of the European Union population, according to the Eurostat data and to ZF's calculations. Despite the fact that interests on RON deposits climbed to levels of three-four years ago, not a lot of Romanians were persuaded to bring more money to the bank, especially since the unemployment rate started to rise from month to month.
In the first half of the year, the fear of a RON depreciation turned savers towards euro-denominated deposits, which rose by double as much as RON-denominated savings, i.e. by 16.5% in euros.
Almost one third of the Romanian population works in agriculture. One of the largest agricultural areas of Europe does not, however, generate earnings for workers - earnings tend to be in kind because subsistence agriculture dominates in Romania.
The minimum wage in Romania amounted to 142 euros in the second half of 2009, to 301 euros in the Czech Republic, and to 350 euros in Poland, according to data from Eurostat (the EU statistics bureau).
After a year of double-digit interest rates on savings, Romanians had bank deposits equivalent to 1,095 euros on average, whilst Hungarians had three times more in savings, the Czechs had five times as much, while people in Poland had 2.5 times higher savings, i. e. 2,519 euros, according to a ZF analysis.
Romania's saving abili
