Summer melts foreign investments away

Summer brought along shrinking foreign investments, which were worth some $30 million in June, 50% less than in the corresponding month of last year, according to data released by the National Trade Register Office of (ONRC).

Consequently, foreign investment amounted to $472.4 million in the first half, down more than 20% since the year-ago period ($605.7 million).

The foreign investment balance thus stood at $9.59 billion at the end of June, up $1.14 billion since the end of last year’s H1. The past twelve years’ foreign direct investment has stopped below $10bn, less than half the money attracted by other Central and Eastern European countries. By 2001, Poland had already attracted $39 billion, while Hungary posted $21.5 billion.

Marian Saniuta, chairman of the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments (ARIS) estimated Romania could attract over $1.8 billion in foreign investments this year. However, should the first-half situation maintain, the total foreign investments will not exceed $950 million, less than the level logged in 2001 and 2002.

Moreover, Saniuta also said that the target could not be met in the absence of some significant privatisation, either for SNP (National Oil Company) Petrom or Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank-BCR).

So far, June has been the weakest month in terms of foreign investment attracted this year, whereas the first five months averaged about 80 million dollars each. The downward trend that started in May continued in June. bogdan.neagu@zf.ro