The better training of Romanian programmers, the foreign language skills and the lower cost of labor in the country made the sector as important to the economy as the food exports, data centralized by ZF show. Romania’s exports of agri-food products and beverages amounted to EUR4.1 billion in 2017, according to the National Statistics institute.
“There’s a huge trend to outsource non-core services throughout Europe. There are some very high costs there in countries like Germany, for instance, where there is labor inflexibility besides very high salaries, it is hard to restructure so it is easier to work with a company for such services,” said Andrei Caramitru, partner with management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group.
“Romania is very well regarded on the global outsourcing market, we speak many foreign languages, customer communication and interaction skills are even better than in India, we have many well-trained programmers, the Internet is fast, and we are on the same timetable as Europe.”
The IT&C sector has become a star of Romania’s economy in the past few years, after multinationals in the industry expanded their operations or opened services centers in the major cities, attracted by tax incentives and good training of IT people. IT&C services exports increased 2.6-fold compared with five years ago, central bank data show.
“IT&C services exports will continue to increase, because if we look at salaries, a software developer in Western Europe or the US makes $250,000 a year, while Romania is far from that level. The only problem that could hinder development is the shortage of labor,” Caramitru said.
In all, Romania exported more than EUR20 billion worth of services in 2017, a record high. This is 14% more than in 2017 and the surplus reached EUR8 billion. Therefore, the surplus of international services trade offsets a big part of the problem created by the goods trade deficit, which reached EUR13 billion last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)