Romania champions EU economic growth in Q1

Romania registered the highest economic growth in the European Union in the first quarter of the year, with a GDP growth of 5.6 percent compared with the same period of 2016, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat, the statistics office of the EU.

The Euro zone economy climbed by 1.7 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period of 2016 and the EU grew by 2 percent. In the last quarter of 2016 the increase was 1.8 percent in Euro zone and 1.9 percent in EU.

The highest growth rates across the EU were recorded in Romania (5.6 percent), Poland and Lithuania (4.1 percent), Latvia (3.9 percent), Hungary (3.7 percent) and Bulgaria (3.4 percent). Meanwhile, the Greek economy fell by 0.5 percent.

Also, Romania had the highest economic growth from EU in the first quarter of this year compared with the increase of 1.5 percent in the last quarter of 2016.

The highest quarterly growth rate from the EU during January-March were registered in Romania (1.7 percent), Finland (1.6 percent), Latvia (1.5 percent) and Lithuania (1.4 percent), while Greece had a decline of 0.1 percent.

According to INS, the Romanian economy registered a growth by 5.7 percent on gross series and by 5.6 percent on seasonal adjusted series in the first quarter of this year compared with 2016.