Romania will post 1 percent economic growth this year, the members of the Romanian Financial-Banking Analysts Association said in answer to the questions put in a survey made public on Thursday.

Their estimate is placed in the middle of other estimates ranging from 0.4 to 2 percent.

The financial-banking analysts believe the Romanian gross domestic product could shrink by 5.5 percent in the last quarter of 2009 compared to Q4 of 2008 and they anticipate the economy could grow by 0.1 percent in Q4 from Q3 of 2009 (in seasonally adjusted figures); this compares to estimates ranging between minus 0.2 and 0.1 percent.

The Romanian economy last year probably contracted by 6.9 percent; this compares to other estimates ranging between minus 7 percent and minus 6.6 percent.

The Romanian analysts put the monthly inflation rate in this January at 1.1 percent, while other projections stand at between 0.8 percent and 1.5 percent; the annual inflation rate is put at 4.6 percent (estimations vary between 4.3 percent and 5 percent). They put the annual inflation rate at end-2010 at 4 percent, as compared to between 3.5 percent and 4.2 percent as estimated by other analysts.

The Romanian Financial-Banking Analysts Association is a non-lucrative professional association set up in January 2008 that gathers more than 50 analysts in the banking sector, pension funds, investment management companies, insurance companies and the capital market. The Association's scope includes the conduct of training programmes in finance and banks, the support of the professional interests and the promotion of the actions required to improve the activity of the financial-banking sector.