INS: Investments in national economy maintain pace in Q1

According to the data provided by the National Statistics Institute (INS) on Tuesday, the investments in the national economy have dropped in Q1 by only 0.3 per cent to RON 12.77 bln compared to the level registered in the same period last year, showing they have kept the pace as compared to 2008.

On the other hand, the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments (ARIS) informed yesterday it has received this year 17 project intentions totaling over EUR 930 M, from the investors. According to Mediafax, the projects will create almost 4,000 jobs, the biggest one, worth EUR 150 M, targeting the iron-and-steel industry.

"Under these circumstances, ARIS monitors 77 investment projects, worth EUR 7 bln, which are in various stages, from intention to implementation," the vice president of the Agency, Claudiu Preoteasa, declared to Mediafax agency. He pointed out that the biggest of the 17 intentions which were received this year could be implemented in the South of the country, and refer to the construction of a plant in the iron-and-steel sector. "The investment is worth EUR 150 M, 250 jobs being created in the first stage," Preoteasa said, without mentioning the name of the investor for reasons of confidentiality.

The intentions of the investors refer especially to the domains of the renewable energy, mechanical constructions for industry, car components, and the wood processing field. "Even if the foreign investments fell in the first quarter 2009 compared to 2008, Romania maintains its competitive advantages in the region, namely the available labour, the good salary to skill ratio, the ability of the agents to speak a foreign language. In some of the neighbouring countries, the fall of the investments in the first quarter was more significant, "Preoteasa stated.

He mentioned that this year ARIS will continue to promote the development of new industrial parks in order to attract investors. The investors who want to come to Romania are highly interested in the facilities that they may obtain. Romania attracted last year foreign direct investments of EUR 9.1 bln, up 25 per cent vs. 2007.

Structure of investments

The investments in machine tools, including means of transportation, have dropped, while the investments in new construction works and other expenditures have risen, INS further informed yesterday. When it comes to the structure of the investments, the investments in other expenditures stood at RON 1.063 bln, up by 33.9 per cent compared to the first three months of last year; the investments in new construction works stood at RON 6.01 bln, up by 9.2 per cent; and the investments in machine tools stood at RON 5.7 bln, down by 11.3 per cent. Compared to the first quarter last year, the first quarter of 2009 has registered a 4.9 per cent drop in the machine tools' share in the total investments, with that share currently standing at 44.6 per cent. At the same time, the new construction works' share in the total investments rose by 3.1 per cent to 47.1 per cent, while the share of investments in other expenditures rose by 1.8 per cent to 8.3 per cent. The economic sectors that have registered a higher volume of investments are the industrial sector (40.8 per cent), the commerce-services sector (36.2 per cent), the agricultural sector (7.6 per cent) and the constructions sector (6.8 per cent).

The industrial production prices have dropped by 0.2 per cent

In April the industrial production prices registered a 0.2 per cent drop compared to the level registered in March and a 2.5 per cent growth compared to the level registered in the same month last year, the INS shows. Based on sectors of activity, the monthly price growth registered in April had the following distribution: +0.9 per cent in the water distribution, sanitation, wastes management and water treatment sector, -0.2 per cent in the processing industry sector and -0.5 per cent in the extractive industry sector. Based on the significant industrial groups, the monthly industrial production price growth registered in April had the following distribution: +1.4 per cent in the energy industry, +0.5 per cent in the durable goods' industry and +0.3 per cent in the soft goods' industry.

Price drops were registered in the capital goods' industry (-0.7 per cent) and the intermediary goods' industry (-1.8 per cent). The same INS communique also shows that the number of houses constructed in the first quarter of the year has dropped by 306 units to 10,595 units compared to the same period last year. Thus, in the first quarter of this year most of the houses (50.8 per cent of the total) have been built in the urban areas, unlike the trend registered in the same period of 2008 when most of the houses (52.9 per cent) were built in the rural areas. The highest growths were registered in the North-East region (+567 units) and South-Muntenia (+453 units).

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