BNR: After 100 years, Romania returns to similar level of relative development against other countries

After a century, Romania has returned to the same level of relative growth against other countries, calculated as per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), purchasing power parity based, of 59 percent of the European Union average, compared with the 67-percent EU average in 1913, according to data presented by Valentin Lazea, chief economist of the National Bank of Romania (BNR).

2017-10-31 13:34:52

"The context of the last 100 years is the following: in 1913, smaller Romania, without Transylvania and Basarabia and the subsequently rejoining provinces, had a per capita GDP purchasing power parity based equivalent to 67 per cent of the then European average, according to Professor Murgescu, who published extensively on this subject," said Lazea, according to Agerpres.

"In 1938, the country lost a good part of this position. Romania still had 51 per cent of the European average, and in the years of communism, although attempts were made at forceful industrialisation by trying to modernise the economy, the GDP PPP-based dropped to 32 per cent, precisely because the communist economy has some inherent, fundamental flaws related to the non-promotion of innovation and the lack of entrepreneurship. In 2000, after the first ten years of transition, the indicator had dropped to 26 per cent of the European Union average. At the end of last year, in 2016, the per capita GDP PPP-based again reached 59 percent of the European Union average. We can say that after a century, Romania has returned to the same level of relative development against other countries," Lazea told the Foreign Investors Summit.

He argues that, if we look at the last 25 years, the years after the December 1989 Revolution, we can see some progress that is indisputable. Thus, the GDP has increased more than four times; inflation has fallen from almost 40 per cent to minus 0.6 per cent in 2015. Unemployment has been more or less constant, apart from a peak in 2000.