ANEIR: Romania's exports dropped by 17% in December

Romania's exports dropped by approximately 17% in December 2008, as compared to the equivalent period of 2007 and, in the first decade of January, exports to countries outside the EU suffered a more accentuated compression, by 46%, according to estimates of the Exporters Association.

"The need for state support for exporters is extremely high, as, according to our data, exports fell by about 17% in December, and those to non-EU areas suffered a 46% decrease in the first decade of January. We believe that the National Association of Exporters and Importers of Romania (ANEIR) and Eximbank have already done what they could to support exports under crisis conditions", said the ANEIR President Mihai Ionescu.

"We did not wait for the change of the Government or the anti-crisis plan, when we knew that exports started to fall in November," Ionescu also said.

In November 2008, Romanian exports of goods decreased by 9% compared to the same month in 2007, up to 2.54 billion euros, while imports decreased by 17%, according to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

In early December, the ANEIR head told NewsIn that exports had already entered into recession.

Ionescu explained that, in November 2008, the overall demand for exports decreased by 10-35%, as against initial orders, and "a major uncertainty for next year is represented by the renewal of contracts," the most affected areas being the metallurgical and steel, textile, automotive, chemical, furniture and glass industries.

The data of the Statistics Institute show that the biggest falls in the exports to EU trading partners were in November 2008, by 10.6%, as compared to the same month of 2007, to 1.815 billion euros, while exports to countries outside the EU suffered less, decreasing by only 4.6%, to 720.7 million euros.

Curierul National