ROMANIA'S PUBLIC DEBT IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The public debt expresses the sum of the amounts borrowed by the central public administration, territorial administrative units and other public entities from natural or legal persons (in the internal market and on the external market) and remaining to be repaid at a given time. The amount of public debt is a fundamental indicator for the sustainability of a country's public finances. If public debt is at a very high level, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), it may signal difficulties in meeting financial obligations, which can lead to economic instability. In this article we intend to analyse the structure and evolution of the public debt of Romania motivated by the fact that lately it is recording a significant increase. In the first part of the paper, we clarified some theoretical aspects regarding public debt by presenting the notion, forms and indicators of appreciation of public debt. In the second part of the paper, we conducted the analysis of the evolution and structure of the public debt of Romania based on the official data available on the website of the Ministry of Finance, Public Debt Section. We note that in the period 2017-30 April 2024, public debt increased almost threefold and gross domestic product doubled. So economic growth has not kept pace with the growth of public debt. Alarming is not necessarily the size of the public debt or the percentage it holds in gross domestic product. Most countries use loans to finance various public expenditures. What we should worry about in Romania is the lack of balance and fiscal discipline that the governors of our country show year after year.