THE INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL DISPARITIES OF ROMANIA ON ATTRACTING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS

by Pauna, Carmen Beatrice
Published in Romanian Journal of Economic Forecasting, 2005, volume 6 issue 1,
35-47

Abstract

Since December ’89 and until today the Romanians have kept waiting for foreign investors to come with money, and to give an impulse to the Romanian economy. However, according to the data existing at the National Office of Trade Register, in these 14 years Romania did not manage to attract as direct foreign investment more than 13.6 thousand million dollars. 
The statistical data show that the foreign citizens have been more interested in industry investments (54.4% of the total invested capital), in services and wholesale trade (10.7%). Agriculture (1%), tourism (2.4%) and constructions (2.4%) did not raise much interest. 
The distribution by the eight geographical regions of these capital inflows shows an extremely inconstant diffusion. Only the region Bucharest- Ilfov has attracted like a magnet 710 million dollars, of the total amount. Another area that has attracted the important investors was the Center region, the value of the assumed investment rising there to 140.6 million dollars. In a classification of the regions, South Muntenia is situated on the third position; this was a region where 94.2 millions of dollars have been invested. The next regions were North-West (74.6 million dollars), West (55.96 million dollars) and the North-East (41.5 million dollars). The counties in the South-East and South-West of the country were avoided by the foreign investors. The statistics indicate that the Dobrogea area has attracted only 9.3 million dollars as important investments, while Oltenia area has attracted only 4.4 million dollars.

Keywords: foreign direct investments, regional capital inflows, regional significant investments, best business areas
JEL Classification: E22, O18, R11