• We believe Romania’s fleet renewal program, the Rabla Classic, will have a limited impact on renewing the country’s fleet due to the existence of a large second-hand vehicle market impeding new vehicle sales.
• Romania’s second-hand vehicle market will remain attractive as cheap vehicle imports are aided by a stable currency and the removal of an

Key View:

• The Romanian government has increased substantially annual taxes and licence fees for the telecoms sector.
• The most tangible negative impact will be operators investing fewer resources in network deployment, posing risks for the launch and development of 5G and IoT solutions.
• Consumers and enterprises will be impacted as well, due to

Key View

• Relations between Romania and EU institutions will deteriorate over the coming months as finding common ground will prove difficult.
• The main issue between EU institutions and Romania will remain that of an ongoing deterioration in the country’s rule of law relative to EU standards.
• Moreover, the government’s controversial fiscal

Key View

• New levies will boost fiscal revenues and help the Romanian government continue its pro-cyclical fiscal policy over the coming years.
• However, we at Fitch Solutions believe the government’s fiscal consolidation projections to be overly ambitious, as we forecast the budget deficit to widen to 3.3% of GDP in 2019 amidst weaker economic

Key View

• Romania's elevated levels of inflation will start to erode consumer confidence and place pressure on passenger vehicle sales growth.
• We believe that consumers' demand for new vehicles has largely been satisfied following the acceleration of their intended vehicle purchases leading up to the effective date of the new WLTP.
• We maintain

Key View

Consumption in Romania has been growing at impressive rates, with record high 9.4% y-o-y growth in 2017. This momentum will continue into 2018, where consumer friendly fiscal policies, such as a decrease in VAT and increases in pension levels, will support average growth of 6.2% for the year. Going forward, rising inflation, hikes to the

Key View: The National Bank of Romania's shift to a more dovish tone suggests less scope for additional interest rate hikes in the coming months. However, as inflation remains elevated, an overly accommodative monetary policy stance may force the central bank to return to a more aggressive tightening cycle in the longer term.

We have revised down