PERFORMANCES OF ROMANIA'S AGRI-FOOD TRADE WITHIN THE EU CONTEXT

The paper aims to identify the positive and negative aspects of the evolution of Romania's foreign agri-food trade and to assess the external competitiveness of its agricultural products in the commercial exchanges with the EU, in the period of preparation for accession. There have been used both, the method of classification by the top categories of products that registered positive or negative trade balance, indicating the comparative advantages and respectively, disadvantages of the traded groups of products, and an alternative method for the calculation of the revealed comparative advantage index of the traded groups of products. The main results consist in a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the domestic agri-food sector, by analyzing the external performances of the Romania's trade in comparison with the trade relations with the EU.