Romania’s Trade in Services. Recent Trends and Prospects

Romania's trade in services has been severely hit by the global financial and economic crisis, and the negative consequences were still felt in 2012. This article aims to analyse the recent trends in Romania's services trade and assess its prospects. Relying on balance of payments statistics provided by the National Bank of Romania, it gives an overall picture on the dynamics, volume, composition and performance of the country’s trade in services over the crisis and post-crisis years. The analysis highlights a number of peculiarities of Romania's services trade, that seem to detache the country from the developments prevailing at the global and European level. The article concludes that: (1) along with a dramatic crisis-induced decline in the volume of services trade, Romania witnessed a sharp reversal of those favourable trends that have spurred the remarkable growth of its services flows in the pre-crisis period, contributing to rapid structural adjustment and improved performance; (2) the recovery of services trade is significantly delayed compared both to the country’s trade in goods and the trends shaping services flows globally and in the EU; (3) hence, Romania's traditional gap in the area of services trade has widened not only in relation to the old and new EU member states, but also to numerous developing countries.