Developments in Romanian Trade

In the first nine months of the year, Romania's exports grew, but imports went up too, so there is still a deficit in 2016.

Corina Cristea, 19.12.2016, 14:08

In the first three quarters of 2016, Romania registered a deficit in the trade of food and agricultural products, which means that it imported more than it exported, according to data centralized by the Agriculture Ministry in Bucharest. Exports went up by 3% as compared to the first nine months last year, and imports went up by over 9%. The EU remains Romania’s main partner in the trade of food and agricultural products, with imports consisting mainly of fresh and refrigerated pork, bakery products, wheat, sugar and coffee. As regards exports, Romania keeps getting the highest revenues from the delivery of grains inside and outside the EU, especially wheat and meslin flour (a mix of wheat and rye), accounting for 5.2 million tones, worth some 862 million Euro. Cigarillo and cigars come second, followed by rape seeds, corn, sun-flower and barley.

According to an analysis conducted by KeysFin, Romanian e-commerce has registered record results, and in 2016 is likely to exceed 1.4 billion Euro, which is a historic high for Romania. According to the data analyzed, the turnover in the Romanian e-commerce has grown significantly in the past years, from 0.37 billion Euros in 2011 to 1.21 billion Euros in 2015. This growth was registered against the background of a spectacular development of online trade services, currently provided by over 5,300 companies, which is by 2600 more than five years ago. KeysFin statistics show that, as Romanians have become growingly interested in products and services sold online, the profitability of the sector grew from 10.4 million Euro in 2011 to 51.7 million in 2015, and the estimated target for 2016 is some 66.7 million Euro.

The spectacular results of the Black Friday campaign in 2016 are evidence of the fact that Romanian on-line trade is now a national phenomenon. KeysFin analysts have explained that it is not necessarily the discounts, but rather the spectacularly high volume of products sold, which show that Romanians get more and more interested in buying from the so-called ‘virtual malls’. Data show that there are 500 transactions registered per minute, which is twice the maximum level last year, and the biggest transaction was worth some 32.000 Euros, the value of an order sent from Hungary.

(Translated by Mihaela Ignatescu)