Thanks to a level of growth in foreign investment in excess of 141% since 2003, the gap is narrowing between Romania and other East European countries like the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, countries normally considered the preferred choice of foreign investors.

According to balance sheet data for 2004 from the National Bank of Romania, the total flow of foreign direct investment has reached the peak value of 4.09 billion euros (5.1 billion dollars). Foreign direct investment per capita has hit almost 292 euros, compared with 61 euros in 2003.

For this year authorities are expecting a slight increase in foreign investment to 4.1 billion euros, making 2004 and 2005 the peak years in terms of attracting foreign companies.

Analysts believe that after the privatisations are completed, this level will be hard to reach again, something which has also been confirmed by the authorities in the Pre-Integration Economic Programme recently sent to Brussels where they said they were anticipating foreign direct investment of 3.8 billion euros in 2006 and 2007.

The level of foreign investment in 2004 is close to what Poland saw in 2003 at 4.7 billion euros. In 2003, with investment coming to 1.6 billion euros, Romania was outpaced by Czech Republic's 2.3 billion euros and Hungary's 2.2 billion euros.

"It is obvious that a number of major global investors reconsidered their interests in Romania in 2004. We can see that foreign investors are still willing to develop and kick-start production on the domestic and regional market," said Alexandru Popa, chairman of the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment (Agentia Romana pentru Investitii Straine). miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro

Thanks to a level of growth in foreign investment in excess of 141% since 2003, the gap is narrowing between Romania and other East European