ROMANIA'S WAY TOWARDS COMPETITIVENESS

We want Romania to become a benchmark for our region, a center of clear competencies and a top reference exporter. Still, our integration in the global economy through the strategic partnership with the European Union has been built mainly on the cheap labor and low and medium-technology exports. Severe social problems have been solved by creating new jobs. Yet, these exports are low value added and have a small contribution to raising the living standard through high and lasting economic growth rates. There is definitely no place for further illusions. We have basically two options left: To compete globally with the Chinese dragon and the Indian elephant on the labour-intensive product markets, or To build a sound policy for attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) that may turn Romania from a spectator into an active player on the high-technology based global market. Taking into account the perishable first option, we are left to play the second card. In other words, to achieve sustainable global competitiveness, Romania has no choice but to become a vibrant knowledge economy. The last few years witnessed constant economic growth and adjustment of the strategic investors' perception of risks. But I believe that Romania is still un undervalued asset. The reasons are gathered on three late bloomer pillars: economics, property rights and geo-strategic advantage. Romania is now in a position to cash in on its geo-strategic location, savvy foreign policy, abundance of natural resources, sound macroeconomic policies, skilled and still inexpensive labor force and the stock-market spectacular growth.