"Romania had last year the best performance in terms of growth in the region, only Latvia stood better, but structural reforms and accelerated absorption of EU funds are needed to maintain growth (...) We expect a better progress" said Thursday Guillermo Tolosa, IMF resident Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, in a conference on financial control Mediafax reports.
The IMF representative noted, however, that economic performance depends too much on factors such as weather, influencing the development of agriculture, which contributes by 6% to the country’s GDP.
"Agriculture remains an important factor of economic growth, but makes the economy vulnerable to shocks, oscillations are recorded annually due to this factor," Tolosa said.
He pointed out that Romania should take advantage of the opportunities they have to support and accelerate economic progress, namely a more intensive attraction of EU funds, focusing on exports and energy.
The IMF official in Romania showed that exports represent only 40% of the GDP, while in other states it can reach a level of 100%.
"For example, if we consider exports to Germany, The Czech Republic exports 25.5% of GDP, so a quarter of the Czech GDP consists of exports to Germany, Hungary is 21%, while Romania has only 6.4% of exports in Germany, four times lower than in the Czech Republic. 'It is a huge opportunity for Romania to develop this segment" , Tolosa said.
According to the IMF representative, Romania has a diversified energy source and should take advantage of this benefit, the energy industry sectors with a growth potential.
Moreover, energy accounts for only 10% of the total imports, while in other countries the level stays at 30-35%, which can be speculated for economic development.
On the other hand, the poor absorption of EU funds places Romania on the last place, a deficit that must be covered quickly, as other countries such as Poland took advantage of European money to recover from the crisis and resume sustained growth.
One of the elements that hinders economic growth is infrastructure, Romania stood at considerable distance from the other EU countries on the state of infrastructure, particularly in the rail and electric transportation, only Bulgaria is place on a lower position, the IMF representative said.