Romania's five-month current account deficit up 15.8 pct

The current account of Romania's Jan. - May balance of payments ran a deficit of 3.018 billion euro, up 15.8 percent from the 2.606 billion euro registered in the same period of 2017, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) said in a release on Monday.

The goods deficit was by 589 million euro higher, the surplus of services was by 179 million euro less, and the primary income deficit was by 105 million euro lower. The surplus of secondary revenues was by 251 million euro higher, the BNR said in the release.

The country's total external debt increased by 2.563 bln euro. The long-term external debt totaled 67.543 bln euro (70.3 pct of the total external debt) as of May 31, 2018, down 1.6 pct from December 31, 2017; the short-term external debt stood at 28.497 billion euro as of the end of May (29.7 percent of the total external debt), up by 14.6 percent from December 31, 2017.

At end-May 2018, the ratio of the National Bank of Romania's foreign exchange reserves to the short-term external debt by remaining maturity came in at 76.6 percent, against 87.2 percent at end-2017.AGERPRES(RO - author: George Banciulea, editor: Andreea Marinescu; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Maria Voican)