Revisiting the Competitiveness of Romanian Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Since the early 1990s the Romanian manufacturing industry has improved in many ways. This headway concerns the labour-intensive sector rather than the technology-intensive one. Apart from local entrepreneurship, foreign direct investments (FDI) have been instrumental in enhancing industrial competitiveness. The Lisbon Agenda revival and Romania’s EU accession will be further inducements for Western businesses to shift production here to fight back both low-cost producers (typically from emerging Asia) and more quality-oriented producers (typically from OECD countries). Hopefully, the FDI spillover effects will send positive vibrations across the economy, and tone down the asymmetry at the core of the manufacturing industry