Romania’s industrial turnover index surged by a nominal 12.7% in April, reversing sharply from the 2.7% annual contraction in March, the statistics office reported. The turnover of the manufacturing companies improved even stronger than the average, by 13.1% y/y.

April turnover data indicates a likely recovery in the industrial output – but also in the exports of the month.

Both industrial output and exports weakened in March, putting another question mark on the sustainability of the 2.2% y/y GDP growth in Q1. But robust industrial output and exports performance in April would bring more optimism among analysts. Industrial production data is announced on June 11, while the foreign trade numbers for the month will be available on June 10.

In real, industrial price-deflated terms, the turnover index strengthened by 9.4% y/y – compared to a negative 0.2% y/y average performance in Q1. In the core manufacturing sector, the real growth was even more intense –11.3% y/y, compared to 1.1% y/y advance in Q1. Since the performance in March was below the Q1 average, the improvement from March to April is even more visible.

The subdued industrial price inflation in April, only 3% y/y compared to 4.5% in March and 5-6% y/y in Jan-Feb, helped the real turnover’s performance also.