Dumitru (Raiffeisen Bank): 30 years of transition can be divided into 10 years of wandering and 20 years of convergence

The 30 years of transition can be divided into ten years of wandering and 20 of convergence when something appeared for us on the horizon – the accession to NATO and EU, the chief economist of Raiffeisen Bank, Ionut Dumitru said on Tuesday.

“Romania had a relatively good period in the 1970s and 1980s when economy grew rapidly, followed by Ceausescu's mad idea to pay the foreign debt. We were close to bankruptcy in 1980-1981, and the period of the 1980s was very complicated from the economic point of view. We had a bad economic growth and even years of economic drop. We entered the transition period when the economy was already in decline. Obviously, the changes which led to the passage to market economy brought a  strong reaction in economy and I call the period until 2000 a 'wandering period', that is ten years of wandering, 20 years of convergence. Those were the 30 years of transition. In the first ten we wandered and found our way until something appeared for us on the horizon – the accession to NATO and EU, which completely changed out perspective,” said Dumitru at an informal event with economic press.

He said the 90s were very complicated, that between 1989 and 2000 we had and economic drop  of – 1.6% per year on the average, followed by 20 years of very high economic growth of 4.1% on the average.

“If we consider the GDP level and fix 1989 at 100 we see that in 2000 we lost 16% of GDP in real terms and in the period that followed until 2019 we reached GDP of 187% compared to 1989 and a very rapid economic growth. For those who regret the communist period when economy was great, today economy is almost the double,” Dumitru said.

He mentioned that at GDP component level we can see “a hunger for consumption and investment after a very long communist drought.”

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