Romania's trade deficit grew by 63% to 38.1 billion RON (11.5 billion euro) in the first seven months of 2007, slightly slower than the 65.2% advance reported in the first half of the year, according to data released by the National Statistics Institute on Monday.

Compared to the similar period last year, trade deficit grew by another 4.4 billion euro considering that imports increased twice as much than exports.

In 2006, Romania reported a trade deficit of over 14.89 billion euro, a 44.4% increase as compared to 2005 when it reached 10.31 billion euro.