European Regional Science Association
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European Regional Science Association
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The abstract for paper number 341:
Carmen-Beatrice Pauna, Ileana Dumitrescu, Nona Chilian, Institute of Economic Forecasting, Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
Regional structural change and specialization in Romania during the pre-accession to the European Union
Following the disastrous economic situation during the communist rule, Romania acquired a unique situation in the economic landscape of the Central and East European countries. The negative consequences of this bankrupt economic policy promoted by the single ruling party had become visible since the ‘70s; they have aggravated during the ‘80s and amplified in the ‘90s. The unfortunate consequences are still currently felt, when practically all the country’s judets (NUTS III) are facing economic and especially industrial restructuring problems. The upseting of the whole economy and its decline after 1989 made the issue of territorial priorities – which represents the main preoccupation of a regional development policy – quite difficult to be supported. This is because the whole country’s territory became a “priority” owing to the problems it faces, and the classical territorial hierarchy of the “developed” and “low developed” areas turned quite relative. Besides the traditionally under-developed areas the industrial decline areas appeared; and they are currently posing special problems through the very high unemployment rate determined by the restructuring processes. Practically all the judets, but especially those industrially developed pose serious problems as regards economic restructuring. The Romanian economy is very dependent on the industry for securing the economic growth and creation of jobs. During the transition period the Romanian industry recorded a significant decline as share in the GDP formation and as number of employees. A development strategy aiming at invigorating the industrial base will take into account the specific industrial traditions and the people’s consent as regards the preservation or creation of industrial companies. The industrial profile of the country’s regions will acquire specific aspects in the future, in every region following to be developed those industrial sectors for which the best location advantages will be offered. The starting points for the achievement of clusters of companies will be identified through detailed regional economic studies and analyses. Up to present the real cooperation potentials of the companies belonging to certain economic sectors and branches in the areas of production, research and market study, etc., are little emphasized. The configuration of these development lines for the future was made starting from the current state of the industry. In our paper we will attempt to draw up the economic regional profiles for the interval 1991-2002. On the basis of some statistical computations of the available data at the regional level for the interval 1990-2002, we could reveal certain tendencies of the territorial repartition of the economic sectors. Because the computations were large, we will present in the following only the conclusions provided by the statistical analysis, in a synthetic manner, for the regional level, having in view that in our following paper to present each region en-detail.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.