Trade surplus of 251 million dollars in the relation between Romania and the USA

• The Romanian Ministry of the Economy: Romania and the USA have a far greater real potential, when it comes to commercial exchanges

After several years where Romania has seen a deficit in its foreign trade with the USA, last year, it has seen a trade surplus of 251 million dollars in the bilateral relations between the two countries.

The value of our exports to the US has increased, in 2011, to over 1 billion dollars, from 734 million dollars in 2010, whereas imports amounted to about 860 million dollars, last year, compared to approximately 750 million in 2010.

The representatives of the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment (MECMA) are saying that they are happy with the evolution of the exchanges between the two countries, but saying that nevertheless the potential is far greater: "We are expressing our satisfaction on the good evolution of the mutual commercial exchanges, in spite of the effects of the economic crisis, of the past few years, as well as by improving their structure, but we do estimate that this is not the real potential of the economies of the two countries".

Imports and exports both revolve around the same types of products, according to data provided by the National Statistics Institute: animals and animal products, grain, fruit, seeds, coffee, teas, plants, industrial and medicinal plants, foodstuffs, tobacco, fuel and mineral oils,chemical products, fertilizer, furs and leather items, rubber, wood, books, silk and tobacco, textiles, clothing, metals, means of transport, machinery, devices and electrical appliances, aircraft and spacecrafts, ships, optical instruments and devices, musical instruments, toys and games etc.

The bilateral commercial relations have consolidated, as the exchanges in the last four years alone have amounted to over 27% of the total goods exchanged between 1990 and 2011. Experts claim that this is also due to the effort of the Romanian party to positively answer the demands coming from America prior to the accession to the EU to lower the level of the protectionist fees on imports from the US.

• The Romanian-American Business Council will be inaugurated this month at the NATO summit

The representatives of the Romanian Ministry of the Economy,Trade and Business Environment have emphasized that the past few years have served as a reference for the bilateral economic relations. Thus, the Romanian president made several official visits to the US. Between March 9thh-March 10th, 2005, there was the first official visit of president Traian Băsescu to the US, a visit followed by another, between September 13th and September 16th, 2006, which provided the opportunity to reinforce the bilateral economic component and the relationship with the Romanian-American diaspora.

According to the officials of the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment, "every year, the president has participated in the General Meetings of the United Nations, and between May 20th-May21st, 2012, in Chicago, will take place the summit of NATO, which will provide an opportunity to reiterate our country's commitments towards transatlantic cooperation, on multiple levels. This opportunity will be used for the official inauguration of the newly created Romanian American Business Council, AMRO, a non-government, non-profit entity which brings together some of the most important American companies already involved in projects in Romania or which are interested in future investments in Romania and which plans to increase the volume of investments of the American companies in Romania".

• The US holds the 13th position among the countries which have invested in Romania

On September 30th, 2011, American investments in Romania amounted to 901.3 million dollars, with the US holding the 13th position among the countries which invested in Romania, after Holland, Austria, Germany, France, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Panama, Spain, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Luxemburg, with a weight of 2.12% of the total direct investments on the domestic market. According to the Romanian Ministry of the Economy, on the aforementioned date, 6,357 companies with American capital were presented as operating in Romania, accounting for 3.58% of the total of joint-ventures registered in Romania. The quoted sources have said that compared to the previous year, American investments in Romania have fallen by 8.9%: "This is an area where we need to intensify our cooperation, including at the government level. The most important American investors on the domestic market, in terms of the volume of investments made, are "Lufkin Industries", "Qualcomm", "United Global Com", "Flextronics", "McDonald's", "Citibank", "Oracle", "Trinity Industries", "General Electric", "Procter & Gamble", "Merchants Bank of California", "Kraft Foods Intl", AIG, "Monsanto", "Palcrom LLC", "Cameron", "Honeywell International", "Smithfield Foods", "Universal Alloy Corporation", "Toro" etc.".

The officials note the increasing interest of American companies to invest in key areas of the Romanian economy, such as the car industry, energy, agriculture, machinery and tools: "We are interested in a far more active presence of the American companies in the Romanian economy - especially through direct investments - which would contribute to an increase in the competitiveness of our products, with would have positive effects for the domestic market, as well as exports".

The representatives of the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment said tha the Ministry has begun providing support to Romanian companies interested in investing abroad. They said: "Even though so far, Romanian investors in the US focused on areas such as IT and real estate, we are convinced that the attractiveness of the American market will spur other Romanian businessmen to begin projects in US".

• Cooperation with American companies for the modernization of our defense industry is welcome, according to the Ministry of the Economy, Trade, and Business Environment

The cooperation within NATO involves the purchasing, by Romania, of products and equipment needed for the modernization of its armed forces.

The specialists of the Ministry of the Economy have said: "Considering that some of these products will be bought in the US, we need to continue to identify - with American assistance - the offset possibilities available to the Romanian industry. The cooperation with the American companies defense companies, in order to modernize the Romanian defense industry is welcome. The example of < Lockheed Martin > must be followed by other American companies such as < Raytheon >, < Northrop-Grumann > and < General Dynamics >". Our authorities are looking to achieve public-private partnerships with American companies in the area of infrastructure: "Given the high level of sovereign guarantees requested for sizable projects in the area of infrastructure and the limited ability of the Romanian government to issue such guarantees, we would want the American companies to review the possibility of drafting new infrastructure projects, in the form of public - private partnership, perhaps using the Build- Operate-Transfer (BOT) formula. This request also takes into account the continuous reduction of Romania's sovereign risk, as it is now a full rights member of the EU and at an advanced stage when it comes to adopting the European currency.

An area where the entities of the two countries are cooperating is the car parts industry. This is one of Romania's most dynamic sectors, which has received over 500 million dollars in direct investments coming from more than 40 renowned companies in the US ("Delphi Packard", "Lear Corporation", "Johnson Controls", "Honeywell-Garett", "Dow Automotive"), and in Germany, France, Italy and Japan.

"We appreciate the decision of < Ford > to begin the manufacturing of cars in Romania this year, output which will be exported for the most part, thus repositioning our country among the top car exporters in Central and Eastern Europe", the officials of the Ministry of the Economy said.

• Romania wants to cooperate with the US in the energy sector

Romania is willing to cooperate with the US in the development of energy products, which include the Constanţa - Omisalj oil pipeline, Unit 3 of Cernavodă, the completion of hydroelectric plants and the modernization of thermoelectric plants, as well as the use of the non-conventional or renewable energy sources.

"We remain interested in strengthening the positions of Romania and the US in the Black Sea basin, by intensifying the actions concerning the identification and accomplishment, as part of the economic component of the Romanian-American Strategic Partnership, of projects and actions for cooperation on the markets of the neighboring countries", the quoted sources said.

According to them, the projects will also be considering Romania's interests or of the US on these markets, as well as interests on a regional level, and the financing vehicle which would be sued to implement these objectives may be the Cooperation Agreement which exists between Eximbank USA and Eximbank Romania concerning the financing of projects on other markets, agreement which so far has unfortunately not seen any significant progress when it comes to financing some sizable projects. One such project could be the Romanian-American cooperation on the construction of the Constanta - Omisalj oil pipeline.