Romania has FDI potential

The foreign direct investment attracted by Romania is still small as compared with the country size, which is typical for a state with a hesitant transition policy and delayed privatisation, shows a survey drafted by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), in cooperation with Bank Austria Creditanstalt.

However, analysts claim Romania may attract more foreign investments in the future, as it still has large companies to privatise, offers cheap workforce and has a wealth of natural resources. Moreover, the upcoming European Union accession will turn Romania into an increasingly more attractive destination for the foreign investors in the following period.

“Considering the fast-paced progress reported in the EU admission process, as well as the advantages offered by Bulgaria’s and Romania’s low production costs, they are likely to become the destinations of choice for foreign investment,” Josef Poeschl, an analyst at the Institute, says.

Analysts find the Southeastern European states (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro) to be generally more appealing than the countries in Central and Eastern Europe (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary).

Among the seven SE European states, Romania and Croatia have attracted the largest total value of the investments made until at the end of 2002, namely 8.5 billion euros and 6.4 billion euros.

The Vienna Institute survey estimates the foreign direct investment in Romania accounted for 1.1 billion euros last year, which was the largest value reported among the SE Eastern countries.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro