TODAY’S NEWS
ECONOMY & COMPANIES
-Bucharest hotels’ occupancy rate stood at 62% in the first quarter of 2023, up 33% y-o-y, and just 5% below the 2019 level, placing Romania’s capital city second in the CEE region, after Poland’s capital Warsaw, real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield data showed.
–Romania exported EUR 2.6 billion worth of furniture in 2022, up 17% y-o-y, according to the association of furniture manufacturers (APMR).
–The Finance Ministry raised RON646 million from banks on Monday (May 22), higher than the scheduled RON500 million, selling government paper maturing in May 2027, at an annual average yield of 6.80%, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) data showed.
–Annual inflation rate will probably drop to single-digit in the next quarter, while economic growth is expected to decelerate in 2023 and 2024, according to the Minutes of the monetary policy meeting of the Board of Directors of the BNR of May 10, 2023.
–Governmental debt increased in February 2023 to 50.1% of GPD, according to data published by the Ministry of Finance (MF).
–Romania imported farm produce and food of over 770 million euros from Italy in 2022, up 21.5% y-o-y, according to the Italian Agency for Foreign Trade.
–The average monthly value of extra-salary benefits granted in Romania in 2022 went up 11% up to 696 RON/month for each employee y-o-y, an annual Benefit study, conducted by Edenred Romania, revealed.
–Capital injections by foreign shareholders into Romanian insurance companies in the first quarter of 2023 stood at EUR 44.099 million, the National Trade Register Office data showed.
–Eleven banks operating in Romania fined a combined 550,000 RON for misleading commercial practices in installment calculation method and the National Consumer Protection Authority (ANPC) ordered them to issue new repayment schedules, for the contractual balance to be restored.
–The IT&C sector in Romania currently has approximately 180,000 employees, with an annual increase of 22%, Dragos Tohanean, deputy chairman of the Authority for the Digitization of Romania (ADR) told the conference of Bucharest Tech Week 2023 on Monday (May 22).
TODAY’S MARKET
EXCHANGE RATES
| EUR 4.9710 | GBP 5.7089 |
| USD 4.6096 | CHF 4.1176 |
| BGN 2.5416 | MDL 0.2591 |
BNR INTEREST RATES
| Deposit facility: | 6% |
| Policy rate: | 7% |
| Lending facility: | 8% |
INFLATION RATE
| 11.2% (April 2023) BNR Target 2022: 2.50% (variation band: ± 1pp) |
BUCHAREST STOCK EXCHANGE (BVB) INDICES
| BET 0.29%, BET-TR 0.30%, BET-FI -0.50%, BET-NG 0.53%, BET-XT 0.20%, BETXT-TR 0.22%, BET-BK 0.11%, RO-TX 0.25%, BETAeRO -0.15% |
CAPITAL MARKET COMMENTARY
| Bucharest stocks traded mostly in the green on Tuesday bucking the trend across Europe where markets ended the session with losses with the time for United States Congress to reach a deal on the debt ceiling running out. |
