Romania ranks 8th in EU in terms of investment to GDP despite a sharp decline

Romania ranked 8^th last year among the 28 European Union member states in terms of investment to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, despite a sharp decline during the last decade, Eurostat data show.

“Among the EU Member States, in 2017 investment accounted for a quarter of GDP in the Czech Republic (25.2 percent) and Sweden (24.9 percent). Estonia (23.7 percent), Austria (23.5 percent), Ireland (23.4 percent), Belgium (23.3 percent), Romania and Finland (both 22.6 percent) as well as France (22.4 percent) all had investment rates of over 20% of GDP,” Eurostat said in a press release.

Last year, total investment from the public and the private sectors by EU member states amounted to almost EUR 3,100 billion.

According to official data, construction accounted for about half of these investments, with machinery, equipment & weapons systems (31 percent) and intellectual property products (19 percent) following.

Overall, total investment was equivalent to 20.1 percent of GDP in 2017, compared with 22.4 percent ten years ago, just before the economic and financial crisis.

Romania recorded one of the largest declines of investment to GDP during the last decade.

“Between 2007 and 2017, the ratio of investment to GDP decreased in 24 out of the 28 EU Member States. Over this decade, the largest declines were observed in Latvia (19.9 percent in 2017 vs.36.4 percent in 2007, or -16.5 pp), Greece (-13.4 pp), Estonia (-12.9 pp), Romania (-12.5 pp), Spain (-10.4 pp), Slovenia (-10.3 pp), Lithuania (-9.8 pp) and Bulgaria (-9.1 pp),” Eurostat said.