Romania’s External Debt Increased by EUR 6 Billion in January-July 2021

Romania’s external debt increased by more than EUR 6 billion in January-July 2021. This is huge, especially in an economic context like the current one. Also, specialists are concerned more as Romania reached new record levels of its public debt, precisely 50% of its GDP in April this year.

According to the National Bank of Romania, the long-term and the short-term external debts are as follows:

• long-term external debt at end-July 2021 totalled EUR 95,931 million (72.7 percent of total external debt), up 3.3 percent against end-2020;
• short-term external debt at end-July 2021 amounted to EUR 36,054 million (27.3 percent of total external debt), up 8.9 percent from end-2020.

In the same period, January-July this year, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 9,057 million, compared with EUR 5,350 million in the same year-ago period. The breakdown shows that the deficits on trade in goods and on primary income widened by EUR 2,321 million and EUR 854 million, respectively; the surplus on services and that on secondary income decreased by EUR 267 million and EUR 265 million, respectively.