| About Romania - The Economy |
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Since the beginning of 1990, Romania has had a free market economy countered by a continuous government presence in the industrial sector.
Successive governments have made strides in liberalizing and privatizing the economy.
Romania sits at the crossroads of many traditional commercial routes that allow access to a further 200 million consumers within a 1,000 km radius of Bucharest.
The main focus of these routes is the Danube River and the port of Constanta, the largest port on the Black Sea, which is currently linked to the North Sea through a new permanent navigation route formed by the Rhein-Main-Danube Canal.
The country boasts of a workforce which is experienced in areas such as engineering and manufacturing and is relatively cheaper compared to most other Eastern European countries.
There is a large industrial infrastructure in many of the country’s leading cities, which together with the country’s considerable natural resources possess substantial potential for exploitation and development.
General Economic Trends
Like many countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Romania has been struggling to switch its previous central economy into a market economy.
Successive governments have found it very difficult to turn the economy around because of the lack of hard currency and because of the inability to secure external funding of the country due to its high budget deficits, mainly accrued from the continuous financing of loss-making state industries.
It has been hard to change many of the old economic and financial mechanisms, as well as the bureaucratic culture that was inherent in many of the old institutions.
In the last 3 to 4 years the overall economic environment has improved and the indicators look healthier.
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