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$Unique_ID{bob00452}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Romania
Chapter 6A. Trading with Romania}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald E. deKieffer}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Romania, Washington DC}
$Subject{romania's
trade
table
exports
romania
past
see
tables
}
$Date{1990}
$Log{See Table 3.*0045201.tab
See Table 4.*0045202.tab
See Table 5.*0045203.tab
See Table 6.*0045204.tab
See Table 7.*0045205.tab
See Table 8.*0045206.tab
See Table 9.*0045207.tab
See Table 10.*0045208.tab
See Table 11.*0045209.tab
}
Title: Romania
Book: Doing Business with the New Romania
Author: Donald E. deKieffer
Affiliation: Embassy of Romania, Washington DC
Date: 1990
Chapter 6A. Trading with Romania
TRADING
Over the past twenty years, Romania's foreign trade has been a captive
of its domestic economic planning. In an effort to reduce its external
debt, the Ceausescu regime emphasized exports of every commodity available,
and severe restraints were placed on the importation of almost everything.
This emphasis on "export at any price, import nothing"
placed severe strains on the economy.
Not only were "luxury" goods such as coffee, brandy and other consumer
goods extremely hard to come by, but imports of industrial products such
as generators, electrical equipment and hoists were curtailed. This was
especially debilitating for Romania's budding "high tech" industries such
as computers and telecommunications.
While the Communist trade policy succeeded in giving Romania a "clean
slate" in terms of its foreign debt, it put the brakes on industrial
development. The new government has thrown the country into a wrenching 180
degree turn. The new leadership has not only permitted, but encouraged the
importation of big-ticket items such as telephone switching equipment,
food processing machinery, and an entire range of Western technology to get
the economy moving again. This has been done without the benefit of a
comprehensive regime of international trade laws, or, for that matter, a
carefully-considered trade policy. In the past, the entire corpus of
Romanian trade laws had been reduced to a simple 30-page pamphlet. State
control over what could be exported and imported made even these laws
largely irrelevant. Romania is now in the process of developing a trading
system modeled on Western approaches. However, it will take years before
they are able to recover from the excesses of the past and make the reality
of their circumstances match the desires expressed by the new regime.
[See Table 3.: Romania's Foreign Trade (million dollars)]
Another legacy of Romania's past is that a considerable amount of its
trade was with Eastern Bloc countries for "soft" currency in so-called
"clearing accounts." The Ceausescu regime was partially successful in shifting
Romania's trade to Western countries, at huge cost to the Romanian consumer
and economy. By the time of the December, 1989 revolution, the percentage of
Romania's trade with the West in comparison with the CMEA countries had
actually increased, but this was done at enormous cost. Romania still had a
trade deficit in "Socialist clearing accounts," but a surplus in hard currency
which it used to pay down its external debt.
In the past decade, exports of machinery, plant and transport equipment
to socialist countries were growing, while fuels, chemicals and raw materials
were exported in greater quantities for convertible currency. In almost all
cases, however, exports were made at prices which did not even cover the costs
of production (which were inordinately high in any event due to the
inefficiencies of Romanian industry).
[See Table 4.: Romania's Exports (percentage of total)]
[See Table 5.: Romania's Imports (percentage of total)]
[See Table 6.: Romania's Principal Exports in 1989]
[See Table 7.: Romania's Prinicpal Imports in 1989]
[See Table 8.: Romania's Chief Export Partners in 1989 (percent of total)]
[See Table 9.: Romania's Chief Import Partners in 1989 (percent of total)]
[See Table 10.: U.S. Trade with Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. U.S. Exports
(F.a.s. value) (Thousands of dollars)]
[See Table 11.: U.S. Trade with Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. U.S. Imports
(Customs value) (Thousands of dollars)]