Prime Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă attended the launch of the 2022 edition of OECD's Economic Survey of Romania, at Victoria Palace, today, in the context of the OECD Secretary–General, Mathias Cormann’s visit to Romania. The visit takes place shortly after the OECD Council’s decision to green-light the opening of Romania's accession negotiations with this Organization.

The Inter-ministerial Committee for OECD Accession approved at its meeting on January 26,  Romania's adherence to the organization's principles, values and standards, as reinforced and developed in the two recently adopted OECD documents at the OECD Ministerial Council meeting held in Paris, in October 2021.

On behalf of Romania and of himself, personally, Prime Minister Nicolae –Ionel Ciucă thanked the OECD senior official for all his efforts to unblock the expansion of the organization and his essential role in the decision of the OECD Council to start negotiations with Romania.

The OECD's Economic Survey of Romania represents a multidimensional X-ray picture of Romania's social and economic realities, highlighting in a balanced way our country’s efforts so far and providing a set of extremely useful recommendations for implementing those measures aimed at generating development and well-being on an intelligent, sustainable and inclusive basis.

It is worth mentioning that the OECD survey includes several references to Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan approved by the European Commission in September, specifying that it focuses on areas where urgent investment is needed. However, a set of the survey’s recommendations match the measures that the Romanian state envisaged in the PNRR.

"The reforms and investments included in the PNRR will contribute to the development and modernization of the Romanian economy in areas such as public finance sustainability, consolidation of public administration and resilience of the health system, ensuring social and territorial cohesion, public administration digitalization and many others. A series of recommendations in the survey find their response in the measures envisaged by the Romanian state in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. We have assimilated all these elements and are preparing to absorb them in the current public policies in Romania in the next period”, stated Prime Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă, referring to the OECD experts’ conclusions.

The OECD survey stresses the transport infrastructure development and the green transition, the need to reduce development gaps, labour market correlation with competencies, improving access to education and training, and pension system reform. At the same time, it shows the efforts made so far and provides useful recommendations in areas of particular importance for our country.

"Romania also managed to deal comprehensively with the consequences of COVID-19.  You responded with a range of social and economic measures that amounted to 3.6% of GDP in 2020 and 1.4% in 2021. As a result, Romania’s GDP surpassed its pre-crisis level in the second quarter of 2021.

Economic activity has rebounded since last year, and the recovery is continuing. We project that, after 6.3% GDP growth in 2021, Romania’s economy will grow by 4.5% in both 2022 and 2023", stated the OECD Secretary–General Mathias Cormann.

In his opinion, Romania made significant progress, succeeding to rapidly catching up with OECD economies, despite the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently facing. By 2019, just before the pandemic, per capita GDP had reached USD 27,000 – or 63%- of the OECD average, up massively from around 30% of the OECD average in the early 2000s, Mathias Cormann exemplified. The senior OECD official underlined in the context the fact that this progress can be further supported through structural reforms implementation associated with the PNRR implementation, which will contribute to the economic recovery of the country, through massive stimulation of public investment.

The OECD Secretary–General also underlined that Romania should cope with economic and public health challenges, mentioning among them, inflation evolution, elimination of social disparities and increase of the COVID-19 vaccination rate.  

The main conclusions of the 2022 OECD Economic Survey on the Romanian economy, are the following:

Economic growth is robust, but the risks are still high;

Macroeconomic policies have supported the economy, and monetary policies must remain vigilant and respond to inflationary pressures. In terms of fiscal policy, it needs to adapt to economic developments in a rapid and targeted manner;

Romania must capitalize on the opportunity provided by the European funds, especially on the Next Generation component;

The public pension system needs to be reformed to ensure public finance sustainability;

Reforms can improve efficiency and fairness in the tax system;

Improving access to better education and a high performing healthcare system is the key to progress in living standards. Economic policies must aim to reduce high rates of inactivity and the informal economy. European funds must be used to respond to social and environmental challenges, including reducing pollution;

There are high regional disparities in living standards and economic opportunities,

Like in OECD countries, labour market integration of people with low levels of education (especially young people, women and the Roma population) is difficult. In order to improve performance in the labour market, it is necessary for all citizens to acquire adequate skills;

Productivity increase was significant in 2010 but it slowed down. Business-friendly reforms, an efficient allocation of resources and the reduction of infrastructure disparities are key to productivity gains;

Improving the regulatory and competitive framework can boost productivity growth;

Although access to finance has improved, SMEs need increased support for access to financial and banking instruments;

Increase in the predictability of regulations to support the business environment in terms of the investment process;

Continuing the fight against corruption will lead to increased confidence in state institutions.

Currently, Romania adheres to 6 of the 8 essential standards for OECD membership. In the coming months, Romania will start the activities related to the accession to the Liberalization Codes. Also, Romania has already expressed its intention to join the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

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Romania's accession to the OECD represents a major objective of Romanian foreign policy. Romania officially submitted its application for OECD membership during the previous enlargement exercises, respectively in April 2004 and November 2012, and renewed it in 2016 and 2017.

On January 25, 2022, Romania was officially invited to join the OECD, along with Bulgaria, Croatia, Argentina, Brazil and Peru.

Note: The Economic Survey of Romania (January 2022)can be accessed at the following links: https://www.oecd.org/economy/romania-economic-snapshot/; https://www.gov.ro/fisiere/stiri_fisiere/Romania_Survey_2022_VRD.pdf