After the first 8 months of 2007 the FDI totaled EUR 4.06 bn, a value that covered only 40% of the current account deficit registered at that time. Of the total FDI registered in Romania in the January-August time period, the capital participations and the reinvested profits have represented 53.3%, while the intra-group credits represented the remaining 46.7%. However their share in the FDI has dropped in the first 8 months of 2008 compared to the same period last year, back when the intra-group credits represented 51.3% of FDI. In August the FDI registered a level of EUR 733 mn, after totalling EUR 5.769 bn in the first 7 months. Last year the FDI dropped by 22.3% to EUR 7.069 bn and covered 41.9% of the balance of payments deficit. Romania’s current account deficit has almost stagnated after the first 8 months of the year, after it previously grew by 12% in July, on the backdrop of higher inflows from current transfer payments and the hiking of the balance of services surplus in August, factors that have compensated
the hike of the trade deficit, the BNR data shows. Thus, the balance of payments deficit in the first 8 months of this year stood at EUR 10.006 bn, compared to EUR 9.853 bn in the same period last year. After the first 7 months of this year, Romania’s current account deficit grew by 11.9% compared to the level registered in the same period in 2007, reaching a level of EUR 9.4 bn. Over the January- August period, the trade deficit – the main source that fuels the external imbalance – has tempered its growth rhythm to 8.1% compared to last year, reaching a level of EUR 11.7 bn. The balance of services has registered a surplus of EUR 688 mn in the first 8 months, up by 61.9% compared to the level registered in the same period in 2007. In the first 7 months the balance of services surplus was up by 70.5%. The income account deficit has grown significantly – by 18% – from EUR
2.86 bn in January-August 2007 to EUR 3.38 bn in the first 8 months of this year.  The transfer payments, mostly including the remittances from Romanian workers abroad, have totalled EUR 6.124 bn in the first 8 months, up by 29% compared to
the level registered in the same period last year. According to BNR, at the end of August Romania registered a medium and long-term foreign debt of EUR 47.46 bn, 23.3% higher than the one registered at the end of 2007, as a consequence of the
growth of the direct public debt and of the publicly non-guaranteed debt.