Romanian IT&C industry, down 12% to 8.2bn euros

2009 brought an end to an eight-year period of growth for the Romanian IT&C industry, which last year registered 12% lower turnover, to 8.2bn euros from 2008, according to a survey by the Institute for Computer Technologies. "The crisis fallout was strongly felt in 209, when turnover of the entire IT&C industry slid to 8.28bn euros (-12%), falling back to the level of 2007. Overall production dropped by 12% to 7bn euros, while contribution to GDP fell by 14% to 3.63bn euros, below the 2007 value," stated Mircea Vuici, survey coordinator. The telecom sector saw turnover go down by 15%, from 5.13bn euros to 4.4bn euros. The software and services sector was one of the hardest hit last year, after posting annual increases of 30-40% during the 2000-2008 period. Turnover went down by 25% in 2009 to 1.9bn euros. As regards the drop in the number of IT&C industry employees, it stood at only 0.2%. The drop of 2009 was not significant compared with the overall economic downturn, Vuici says.