The number of newly established software companies with American capital in Romania doubled in 2000, as compared with 1999, the Ambassador of the United States of America to Bucharest, James Rosapepe, maintained.
According to the survey regarding American investments in the IT industry in Romania, conducted by the United States Embassy and presented by ambassador Rosapepe at the end of last week, the number of American software companies producing in Romania for the United States market has increased fivefold over the past five years.
The exports of the Romanian and American IT companies to United States of America reached 18.4 million dollars last year.
"The IT companies came here, because Romania has everything they want: highly-skilled workers, comparatively low costs and proximity to the Western market. It is about that "New Economy" which entails low capital investments that are in no way connected to the traditional economy dealing in industrial output.
In the new economy, all it takes to establish a business is one room, two computers and two computer specialists.
This is reason enough to continue being optimistic about the American interest in investing in the software industry and IT sector in Romania, " Rosapepe said.
In 2000, more than seventy-five percent of the exports of software developed in Romania for the United States market came from American-capital companies, and twenty-five percent from Romanian companies, Ambassador Rosapepe explained.
He added that the average number of employees in the Romanian and American companies included in this study (sixty-three companies with fully or majority American-owned capital and eighteen companies fully Romanian-owned) reached thirty-eight.
An analysis of the leading American companies in the hardware sector (Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and CISCO) shows that they registered a forty to sixty percent increase in sales figures in Romania.
The American software investments were made not only in Bucharest, but also in other major cities such as Brasov, Cluj, Oradea, Arad, Timisoara and Iasi, Rosapepe specified.
He added that the contribution of the software industry in the Gross Domestic Product of Romania had increased from 100 million dollars to 160 million dollars over the past three years, while exports to the United States of America and Western Europe tripled, amounting to more than 30 million dollars in 2000.
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
