Trade between Romania and the US reached 5.5 billion euros, but far from potential

The trade between Romania and the US reached, last year, 5.5 billion euros, up by 10% against the previous year, but they are still far from the potential, stated Romania’s ambassador to the United States of America, Dan-Andrei Muraru to the Agerpres correspondent.‘Last year there was 5.5 billion euro, imports and exports. Annually, there is a natural growth, of about 10%. Obviously, there is growth every year, but it is far from the potential. I’ll give you some figures: Poland –US  23-25 billion euro, Hungary, a country half of Romania as population and surely with a smaller GDP – 10 billion euros with the US, Czechia – US 12 billion. So, we see the significant differences and we think that, beyond the fact that we have a historical delay due to the conditions Romania had to face, long transition, we think that we lack initiative, which could bring benefits in the domain of start-ups, in the domain of high technology, in the domain of infrastructure, in the domain of automotive industry. We think there is much potential’, Muraru said.In this context, the Romanian diplomat said that, last year, Romania had the most numerous delegation of companies from Europe and the third largest in the world for Select USA – the biggest trade fair in America.He considers that the lack of robust commercial exchanges is the big suffering of the strategic partnership between Romania and the US.‘We need initiative at the highest level, as we realized that, on the one hand, the American investors know very little about Romania and it doesn’t work if you keep waiting. We need to constitute a task force or several, to come and connect with these companies and try to bring them to Romania’ explained Andrei Muraru.