Romania: Will economic growth come back to strong performance?

After five challenging years Romania’s economic performance proved that it has become one of the leaders of the European recovery and exceeded expectations with GDP growth rising by 3.5% in 2013. However, the slowdown of the growth in 2014 shows another picture. 

Looking into the details of Romanian growth outperforming the 2013 CEE average of 1.2%, it can be concluded that significant contributions came from the agricultural sector as well as industry, particularly car production supplying mainly foreign customers. 

Can those factors be considered as sustainable contributors to future economic performance in Romania, especially as the country has reentered into a technical recession in the first two quarters of 2014? In this Panorama we will also look into the agricultural sector as a crucial sector for the Romanian economy employing nearly a third of its workforce. The transport sector in Romania is also an important pillar of the country’s economy. The Romanian transport companies, with the second largest fleet of goods vehicles in the CEE region and attractive labour costs, are well equipped to satisfy increasing demand for transport services and international trade. This Panorama will answer the question of whether they are current ‘blue chips’ for whom the only problem at the moment could be ‘complaining’ about the huge demand for their services. Last but not least, the Panorama briefly investigates the risk levels of particular sectors of the Romanian economy. 

Table of contents

Part 1: Recent developments

Part 2: Sector developments : Transport sector / Agricultural sector

Part 3: Sector Barometer

Conclusions