Romania’s economy outperformed the rest of the European Union last quarter as the government opted not to impose strict restrictions that shuttered most of the continent, Bloomberg reported.
The agency said that output not only grew from the previous three months, but soared ten times more than what analysts had predicted.
The 5.3% growth for the last three months of 2020 put Romania ahead of all other EU members to have reported data so far.
“In the fourth semester of 2020, the Romanian economy grew by 5.3%!!! A fantastic performance. The QUICKEST economic rebound in history. We promised. We carried through. We were right. Economic recovery this quarter is a certainty!”, Prime Minister Florin Citu wrote on Facebook Tuesday.
Romania’s economy shrunk by 3.5% last year, less than forecast by the World Bank and other institutions.
Bloomberg reported that the end of the year was good for other parts of the region. Romania’s neighbors Hungary and Bulgaria both unexpectedly expanded from the previous three months, according to figures Tuesday.
Overall, Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, looks set to be the EU’s best performer last year.
Romania has officially avoided a recession during the pandemic by only posting just one quarter of economic contraction, between April and June, when Romania was in a state of emergency for two of those months.
Romania has one of the bloc’s biggest budget deficits, but managed to boost public investments to the highest in a decade, underpinning construction. IT, one of the country’s assets, remained strong, Bloomberg noted.
