A report from Romania’s Statistics Institute, INS, published on Friday, holds good news for the economy of the Balkan country.

Romania’s gross domestic product, GDP, increased by 2.9 per cent in 2014 compared to the year before, the INS said. In the fourth quarter of 2014, GDP grew by 2.6 per cent compared to the same period of 2013.

Romania’s GDP was 637.6 billion lei (144.3 billion euro) in 2013, which was 3.4 per cent up compared to 2012. Based on INS estimates, GDP rose 656 billion lei last year.

Analysts welcomed the confirmation of economy recovery, while noting that the 2014 GDP growth figure was slightly below earlier expectations of growth of some 3 per cent. A drop in external demand had affected industrial output, they said.

Earlier this month, the European Commission predicted that Romania’s economy would grow by 2.7 per cent in 2015. If so, that would the sixth highest growth rate in the EU.

Romania experienced a deep recession in 2009 and 2010, when business activity contracted by 9.1 per cent. The economy slumped again early in 2012.