It is possible that the economic growth in Romania will be even lower than 4% in 2022, and a large number of bankruptcies are not excluded, said Ionut Dumitru, chief economist of Raiffeisen Romania.

He reasoned that not all producers would be able to transfer to customers the sharp energy price increases, eventually incurring big losses.

"Given the imminent staggering growth in energy prices, I refuse to believe that producers will remain untouched," he explained, quoted by Wall-street.ro.

The industrial prices have indeed soared by 28% YoY as of November (latest data available), while the consumer price inflation - although very high in absolute terms - can not catch up with such advance.

As regards the monetary policy, Dumitru argues that the National Bank of Romania (BNR) is well behind its peers and must move fast to close the gap by steeper rate hikes.

BNR is expected to operate 50bp rate hikes in each of the coming two monetary board meetings, Raiffeisen Romania's chief economist said. 

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iulian@romania-insider.com