AmCham launches Romanian Competitiveness Report

The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania launched yesterday the Romanian Competitiveness Report, which contains an assessment of main policy areas impacting doing business in Romania. The report contributors also formulated recommendations for the legislative framework, public administration, physical infrastructure, human resources, fiscal/monetary policy and macro outcomes, resulting from the previous areas.

The report’s overall indicators reveal 25 competitive advantages for Romania, 49 disadvantages and 22 neutral indicators, meaning that there is more work to be done in this field. However, Romanian President Traian Basescu, stated that Romania has registered significant progress in the last decade, and that in 2000, Romania was competitive in only 1 or 2 areas.

The Romanian President said: “This study represents a starting point for the main capitalistic world theme, which is competitiveness. The competitiveness of a country is not based solely on the government and administration, but it also includes the private sector”. Basescu added that Romania has a competitive advantage in agriculture and food industry, tourism and the IT industry.

U.S. Ambassador in Romania Mark Gitenstein, commented that “the easiest dollar to get is from people that are already here”, and that the country needs to further consolidate the business environment in order to attract foreign investors, and establish a predictable and transparent legal framework.

Gitenstein revealed that U.S. President Barack Obama told President Basescu, during an official visit this fall, to “keep doing what you are doing, to deepen the market and the democracy in order to improve the relationship between USA and Romania”.

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The AmCham report also contains the results of a survey involving over 200 CEOs whose companies operate in Romania. Over 57 percent of the CEOs surveyed have indicated that their company will increase capital investment in Romania by either up to 50 percent or more over the next five years. Similarly, 64 percent of respondents stated that their average number of employees in Romania will increase by either up to 50 percent or more. Another 20 percent responded that the investment in Romania surpassed expectations while 62 percent of the CEOs said that expectations were met.

Ovidiu Posirca

Report highlights for Romania:

people employment: 49 percent – 16 percent below the EU average

gross fixed capital: EUR 1300 per capita – 29 percent of the EU average

government subsidies: 0.67 percent of GDP – 19 percent of EU average

total general government revenue: 37 percent – 10 percent below the EU average

public employees to total population: 8 percent – 1 percent higher than EU average

10 year government bond yield: 7.43 – 1.5 times the EU average

3 month interest rates: 5.77 percent – 3.7 times EU average

The full report can be consulted at this address: http://bit.ly/rstK74