In January 2024p, the balance-of-payments current account posted a deficit of EUR 1,358 million, compared with EUR 760 million in January 2023. The breakdown shows that the deficit on trade in goods declined by EUR 229 million, the surplus on services fell by EUR 351 million, the primary income deficit stood at EUR 376 million against a EUR 27 million surplus in the same year-ago period, while the secondary income surplus decreased by EUR 72 million. Non-residents’ direct investmente in Romania totalled EUR 583 million (compared with EUR 596 million in January 2023), of which equity (including the estimated net reinvestment of earnings) and intercompany lending recorded net values of EUR 697 million and EUR -114 million, respectively. In January 2024, total external debt increased by EUR 4,314 million to EUR 173,126 million, of which: long-term external debt at end-January 2024 ran at EUR 125,244 million (72.3 percent of total external debt), up 3.4 percent against end-2023; short-term external debt at end-January 2024 amounted to EUR 47,882 million (27.7 percent of total external debt), up 0.5 percent from end-2023. Long-term external debt service ratio stood at 11.2 percent in January 2024 against 17.4 percent in 2023. At end-January 2024, goods and services import cover ran at 6.3 months, as compared to 5.6 months at end-2023. At end-January 2024, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania’s foreign exchange reserves to short-term external debt by remaining maturity came in at 99.9 percent, as against 97.4 percent at end-2023.
Romania achieved the best result in its history at the 37th edition of the International Olympiad in Informatics 2025. The four students representing the country each secured a gold medal. The olympiad took place in Sucre, Bolivia, and brought together participants from over 90 countries to compete in computer science. Romania’s golden team consisted of […]
Romania has the third-highest electricity spot price in the EU from the beginning of the year to date, maintaining the position it held last year, according to data analyzed by Profit.ro. The average daily price of electricity traded on the day-ahead market operated by OPCOM (equivalent...
With AI's promise to elevate efficiency and access to knowledge comes the prospect of increased inequality for those who cannot access it. Against the backdrop of the many challenges AI poses, it is important to examine our truth bubbles, identities, and modes of organizing, behavioral scientist Tamás Dávid-Barrett argues. Tamás Dávid-Barrett, who trained as both […]
Home prices continue to rise rapidly in most major cities across Europe and globally, including Romania. Bucharest and other large cities are nearing the critical threshold of inaccessibility for residents with average incomes, according to an analysis by the Social Monitor, a project of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Romania, based on data from Numbeo and Eurostat. In the […]
Representatives of Romania’s main education trade union federations protested on August 4 for the fourth consecutive day in front of the Ministry of Education and Research, opposing austerity measures introduced under Law 141/2025, which came into force on August 1,
The Declic Community has submitted a petition signed by roughly 90,000 Romanians to the Presidential Administration, calling on president Nicușor Dan to initiate a national referendum on the reform of special pensions. The civic group is demanding that all pensions follow the contributory principle and that the retirement age be the same for all professions, […]
