Against a backdrop of escalating East-West tensions over Ukraine and mounting fears about the fallout from China's attempts to tame its credit boom, Romania, which has a 'junk' credit rating from Standard & Poor's and whose economy is still under an IMF programme, epitomises the resilience of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) to the sell-off in emerging markets (EMs).

In February Romania registered an annual inflation rate of 1.3%, exceeding the EU average (0.8%) according to data published on Monday by Eurostat.At the same time Estonia and Romania rank first in EU for the average overall price increase in the last 12 months (February 2013-January 2014) with an advance of 2.8% and 2.6% respectively.

The lowest annual inflation rates were registered in Bulgaria (-2.1%), Cyprus (-1.3%) and Greece (- 0.9%) in February, while the highest were in Malta and Finland (both with 1.6%). (source: actmedia.eu)