George Banciulea

The annual inflation rate remained stable at 2.1% in December last year as food prices rose by 3.24%, services by 2.69%, and non-food goods by 1.01%, according to data published on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). "Consumer prices in December 2020, compared to December 2019, increased by 2.1%.

The minimum wage will be indexed on Wednesday, in the Government meeting, by 3.1%, namely 70 lei gross, and the pensions will be increased this year at least by the inflation rate, Minister of Labor Raluca Turcan told private broadcaster Digi 24 Tuesday evening.

The total monthly average income per household stood at 5,302 lei in the third quarter of last year, and the total expenditures reached, on average, 4,444 lei per month/per household, accounting for 83.8% of the total income level, show the data of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), published on Monday.

As of November 27, 2020 optional pension funds held assets worth over 2.8 bln lei, up 15.26 percent YoY, the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) announced. Government securities account for the highest share of this amount, with 1.825 bln lei (64.10 pct), followed by stocks with 712.819 mln lei (25.03 pct) and units in collective investment undertakings with 93.556 mln lei (3.29 pct).

Assets of mandatory privately managed pension funds amounted to over 73.145 billion lei as of November 27, 2020, up 20 percent YoY, shows data of the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF). Government securities account for the largest share in assets with 49.73 billion lei (68 pct), followed by stocks with 15.158 billion lei (20.72 pct) and corporate bonds with 2.98 billion lei (4.07 pct).

The unemployment rate in the third quarter of this year was 5.2 per cent, down 0.2 per cent from the previous quarter, according to data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), on Tuesday. The unemployment rate for men was 5.4 per cent, and for women was 5 per cent, in the said interval.

The average number of pensioners was 5.125 million persons in the third quarter of 2020, decreasing by 7,000 persons over the previous quarter, and the average number of pensioners from social state insurance has reached 4.675 million persons, according to data of the National Institute for Statistics (INS) sent on Friday to AGERPRES.

Turnover in wholesale trade (excluding trade in motor vehicles and motorcycles), in nominal terms, increased in the first 10 months of this year compared to the similar period in 2019, both as a gross series and as a series adjusted for the number of working days and seasonality by 2.8 pct and 2.1 pct, respectively.

The annual inflation rate fell to 2.1% in November this year, from 2.2% in October, given that food prices rose by 3.81%, services by 2.77%, and non-food goods by 0.78%, according to data the National Institute of Statistics (INS) published on Friday. "Consumer prices in November 2020 compared to November 2019 increased by 2.1%.

Liquidity, measured in terms of the average daily trading value, increased by over 42% at the cumulative level of all types of financial instruments and exceeded RON 62 million (EUR 12.86 million) for the first 11 months of the year, according to a report of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) released on Wednesday.