The Finance Ministry (MF) published on Thursday night the budget draft for this year, built on an economic growth of 2.5%, which brings the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 1,912 billion lei current prices.

The average annual inflation on which the budget is calculated is 4.4%.

The budget deficit is estimated at 7.04% of GDP.

The consolidated budget revenues are estimated at 667.523 billion lei, representing 34.9% of GDP. The largest shares within budget revenues in 2025 are held by (social insurance contributions - 30.8% of total revenues), followed by VAT (20.4% of total revenues), amounts received from the EU (13.1% of total revenues), and income and wage taxes (8.5%).

Expenditures are estimated at 802.170 billion lei, representing 41.9% of GDP. In 2025, investment expenditures total approximately 149.7 billion lei, accounting for 7.8% of GDP. Investments are supported by the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, but they must be completed by the end of 2026. Personnel expenses are estimated at 169.5 billion lei in 2025. Major shares in total expenditures in 2025 are social assistance (30.2% of total expenditures), personnel expenses (21.1% of total), and investment expenditures (18.7% of total).

According to the Report on the macroeconomic situation for 2025 and its projection for the years 2026-2028, economic development takes into account fiscal-budgetary consolidation measures and a balanced growth of public and private investments in the priority sectors of the economy.

On the supply side, the industrial sector is expected to gradually recover, but with a moderate growth (0.5%). The continued development of infrastructure projects will result in high dynamics in the construction sector (4.8%). Services will remain the main driver of economic growth, with a dynamic of 2.5% based on the prioritised development of high value-added activities. The increase in the agricultural sector is estimated at 3.9%, considered cautious. However, this growth does not cover the sharp contraction from the previous year, but takes into account the fact that this sector is heavily influenced by climatic conditions, as indicated in the quoted document.

On the demand side, given that available resources, both through the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, as well as governmental resources, will be channeled into major infrastructure projects, an acceleration of investment activity has been considered. Thus, gross fixed capital formation, with a dynamic of 5.9% and an investment rate of 27.4%, will be the main factor for economic growth.

Private consumption, due to the reduced growth of real disposable incomes (as a result of fiscal-budgetary measures maintaining public sector wage and pensions at the previous year's level), will visibly slow down, with dynamics similar to that of GDP (2.5%).

Net exports will significantly reduce their negative contribution to economic growth (-0.8 percentage points), as a result of the recovery in exports of goods and services (growth of 2.3%) along with the increase in imports of goods and services by 3.8%.

The current account deficit is forecast to reach 28.3 billion euros in 2025, with a share of 7.4% of GDP, with a declining goods balance deficit down to 9.2% of GDP.

Regarding the labour market, for 2025, an increase of over 63,000 employees is estimated, reaching a total of 5.475 million employees and an unemployment rate of 3.1%. Nominal wages, both in the public and private sectors, will experience significant deceleration, from double-digit growth in 2024 (14.4%) to single-digit growth in 2025 (6.1%). AGERPRES (RO - author: Andreea Marinescu, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - editor: Adina Panaitescu)