Revista Română de Statistică (Sep 2018)
Romanian Foreign Trade Dependency and Stability
Abstract
The Romanian foreign trade was significantly changed after 1990. The privatization, economic restructuring and EU accession had an impact not only on the size and foreign trade diversity but also on the structure and commerce routes. Moreover, Romania’s Integration in the European Union on January 1st, 2007, eliminates the trade barriers between member countries, increasing the trade relations within the region and facilitating the expansion of intra-industry trade. This paper aims to analyze the level and structure of foreign trade in Romania after 1989 by analyzing the dependency and the stability indicators. The Grubel Lloyd index is computed by type of ownership of firm’s capital and specific activity of companies – export of high-tech products, inward processing transactions, etc. The main conclusion is that Romania should keep a right balance between dependency on EU single market and developing trade relations with other non-EU countries where it can have either an exceeding trade balance or comparative advantages based on high-tech exports.