Romanian Minister of Finance Contradicts Official Data: ‘Inflation Rate is not 5%’

Romania is expected to have a 7% economic growth by the end of the year. This is what all the international rating institutions predict for the country. Romania will thus have the biggest economic growth in the European Union, an unprecedented record for the East-European member.

At the same time, the statistics show that the inflation rate already reached 5%, mostly because the energy, gas and oil prices soared, but also because of the V-shaped recovery. Also, the National Bank of Romania predicts the inflation will reach 5.6% by the end of the year.

Romania is on a recovery trend, that’s a fact. Romania also has rising inflation, and this is visible by checking the official statistics. In these conditions, the expected improvement of the living conditions in Romania, due to the economic growth, have to wait a little longer.

Yet, it seems that the new minister of Finance knows it better. While talking to the Romanian journalists, Dan Vilceanu said:

The inflation is not at a record level and it is not 5%. 5% was only an estimation of the Romanian National Bank. But this thing should be discusses to the responsible institution with this problem, which in this case is the National Bank. On the other hand, the Romanian Government didn’t take any measures to generate inflation this year.

Dan Vilceanu, Romanian minister of Finance

Also, he generated vivid debates when he told the journalists that there cannot be economic growth without inflation. In 2015, Romania had a 3.7% economic growth with a negative inflation rate.

All these mistakes of the new minister of Finance were done on the first day of its mandate. Everybody expects him to commit a series of this sort of gaffes in the days to come.

His appointment to this position was done without the agreement of the party leader, Mr. Ludovic Orban.