The corn harvest is estimated at 13.7mn tonnes for the 2021/22 marketing year in Romania, one of the EU's top two corn producers.
Consumer price inflation accelerated to 8.8% y/y in March, with prices pushed up by rising food and energy import costs.
Central bank board member says prices "exceeded our darkest expectations" as annual inflation rate shoots up to 10.2%.
Spike in commodity prices combined with need to find new suppliers after war in neighbouring Ukraine push up prices in Moldova.
Towards 13,000 Ukrainians have found jobs since the late February invasion of their country.
Rise in consumer prices hits 12.7% year-on-year.
Romania’s trade gap widened by 30% y/y in February and by 50% y/y in the first two months of the year.
Russia’s economy will contract by 11.2% in 2022 and Ukraine’s by 45%, according to a new forecast released by the World Bank on April 10.
Without government intervention, headline inflation would have been 3-4pp higher last month, analysts estimated.
Romania’s public debt increased by €4.1bn in the first two months of this year.
The war caused a sudden acceleration in inflation, especially for prices of energy and fuel, both of which Albania imports.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) made a surprise key interest rate cut from 20% to 17% on April 8 although the policy board meeting was not scheduled until April 29, as the regulator soft-landed Russian ruble to the levels at which it traded prior to
Retail sales rose 9.8% y/y, the fastest rate seen in almost a year,
Sales of passenger cars crashed by 43% year on year to 78,900 units, marking a record-high monthly drop and the steepest since 2007.
The seasonally adjusted S&P Global Russia Services PMI Business Activity Index plummeted to 38.1 in March, down from 52.1 in February – the biggest fall since the PMI index crashed at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Currency depreciation and squeezed availability of inputs linked to sanctions effects on Russia send index down to 46.8 in March.
Effects of Ukraine war combine with exising ills.
Poland's Purchasing Managers' Index dropped 2 points to 52.7 in February.
The Russian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) sharply deteriorated in March 2022, with the rate of decline after the military invasion of Ukraine accelerating to its fastest since the early stages of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The Moldovan government is preparing to rewrite its 2022 budget after the war in neighbouring Ukraine caused growth to falter.