Romania exported EUR67.5 billion worth of goods and services in 2014, with goods accounting for EUR53.5 billion of this amount.
The big surprise last year was the fast-paced development of creative services, a sector that includes business consultancy, IT services, legal services and research and development services and experts say they have the highest potential to create new high-paying jobs.
“The R&D service sector, despite the low value, increased by 25% last year. My bet is on the export of R&D services because once laser research in Magurele develops, foreign orders will start to pour in,” said Professor Cezar Mereuta, Ph.D., associate researcher with the Center for Macroeconomic Modeling of the Romanian Academy.
“Moreover, a number of R&D centers of multinational companies are in place (such as Renault’s center in Titu, Delonghi’s in Cluj and Continental’s in Timisoara), so I expect to R&D service exports to surge in two or three years.”
Romania exported more than EUR4.7 billion worth of creative services last year, broken down into: commercial technical services and other business services – EUR1.6 billion (up 20% on 2013), professional and management consulting services – EUR1.5 billion (up 4% on 2013), IT services – EUR1.4 billion (up 15% on 2013), and RON179 million worth of R&D services (an increase of 25% on 2013).
“I am not surprised by the fast-paced development of exports of such services, because Romania still has very well trained people, who speak foreign languages. Service activities require small investments, which is why Romania has the potential to create many jobs in such fields as R&D, for instance,” said Andrei Caramitru, senior partner with management consulting firm McKinsey.
McKinsey, an over EUR20 million business in Romania in 2013, does service exports, too, since one third of its consultants in Bucharest travel to other European countries to provide consultancy and such activities are included in the service export category.
“All services centers that have hired thousands of people in the past few years do service exports. Very well-trained people and cheaper labor than in other countries make Romania a very good destination for orders from abroad in the services sector,” Caramitru added.
Romania will remain good market for service export as long as the quality of education remains good. The development of service exports can be used to attract Romanians living abroad and even a national program might be created to offer Romanians coming back home tax incentives, Caramitru said.
Another company exporting services from Romania is Huawei Technologies, the Chinese IT&C solutions provider, which has been operating in the country since 2003. Huawei has hired more than 300 people in the past few months, following demand from customers in other countries.
“Our services center serves mainly customers in Europe. We hire people as we win new projects and increased our staff, following new projects received from such customers,” said Vlad Doicaru, head of Enterprise & Integrated Accounts with Huawei Technologies Romania.
The company has more than 1,200 employees in Romania at the moment, he added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)