Foreign direct investment down over 70pct in Romania, Jan.-Feb. 2020

Foreign direct investment in Romania decreased by 70.86% in the first two months of 2020 to 409 million euros, compared with 1.404 billion euros in the first two months of 2019, according to data with the National Bank of Romania (BNR) released on Tuesday.

"Non-residents' direct investment in Romania totalled 409 million euros(compared with 1,404 million in January - February 2019), of which equity (including estimated net reinvestment of earnings) amounted to 437 million euros and intercompany lending recording a negative net value of EUR 28 million," a BNR release mentions.

The number of start-ups running on foreign capital decreased in the first two months of 2020 by 4.6%, compared with the similar period of 2019 to 892, according to data centralised by the National Trade Register Office (ONRC).

The 892 new companies had a subscribed share capital totalling 1.683 million US dollars, down 42.4% from January-February 2019.

As of February 29, 2020, most of companies running on foreign capital had investors from Italy, at 49,025, but the highest value of the share capital belonged to Dutch companies, at 12.647 billion US dollars and 5,431 companies.

At the end of February 2020, there were 227,784 companies in Romania with foreign participation in the share capital. The value of the subscribed capital was approximately 63.413 billion US dollars.