Out of all the major categories worth of over 100 million euros, cars, equipment, technology and generally high-added value products are the ones that witnessed the fastest export growth in the first four months of this year.
"The car and transport equipment industry accounts for the largest share of Romania's foreign trade. The increase in production capacities as a result of investments in this segment makes a positive contribution towards the gradual reduction of the trade deficit," stated Rozalia Pal, chief economist of UniCredit Tiriac Bank.
Although imports are higher in absolute value, which led to a 10.8 billion-euro trade deficit in the first six months and an increase of 11%, the growth rate has been slowing down since December 2007.
"The trade deficit trend in the first half is, in my opinion, encouraging; we are seeing exports increase faster than imports and an annual growth rate of 11.3% much below the 67% growth rate registered during the same period of last year. The trend is also generated by the structural improvements of exports," stated Georgiana Constantinescu, an analyst at Credit Europe Bank.
Exports witnessed an over 21% annualised growth rate in June if calculated in euros, while imports are one step behind in terms of growth since the first half of the year.
The highest export growth in the first half of the year of all the high-value categories was registered by the "Office or automated data processing machines and devices" category, up 197% compared with the first four months of 2007.
"Boosting exports for certain product categories is part of the national strategy, we try to export products with as high an added value as possible, to move from timber to computers. We are not allowed to ban exports of certain products, but laws are a tool we can use to influence their structure," stated Valentin Brebenel, an advisor at the Foreign Trade Department.
The rankings of the highest annualised increases of exports and imports by product categories indicate the Romanian market's trend to import furniture, instead of exporting it.
Although the nominal value of furniture exports remains over three times higher than that of imports, given the forest resources of the country and the tradition of the sector, the fact that furniture ranks third in terms of import growth is a good sign, officials stated.
"Legally, there is a maximum volume of lumber that can be cut every year, precisely to cap exports in this field. As for electrical power trade, it is not easy to set regulations, since the major electricity companies have long-term agreements in place with foreign partners," the official of the Foreign Trade Department added.
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