EY Romania Attractiveness Survey shows logistics as the next FDI hot spot

Logistics dominates the intentions of FDI investors in Romania in terms of types of investment projects, accumulating almost a third of the total number of projects announced for 2021, according to the EY Romania Attractiveness Survey.

Logistics thus turns into the next hot spot for foreign investors, after the IT projects took almost one-third of the projects in 2020, followed by wholesale, retail, and distribution (18%) and electronics manufacturing (9%).

This year, the projects announced - besides those in the area of logistics - go to retail and marketing (10 compared to 17 logistics projects), followed in third place by R&D (7 projects).

Consequently, it is not surprising that the biggest concern expressed by the foreign investors pursuing projects in Romania is related to infrastructure. The reliability and the coverage of the infrastructure networks (transport, telecommunications, energy) are seen by 52% of the investors as an important issue when making investment decisions in Romania, followed by public security policies aimed at preventing crises (sanitary, cybersecurity, environmental or natural) - seen as important by 48% of investors.

The technology adoption rate, by consumers, the public and authorities, is also seen as an important issue (30%) with high importance in the investment decisions.

Bucharest has been the primary destination for FDI in Romania for more than a decade. However, the investment intentions indicated in the survey show a new interest for other regions, especially the western region of Romania, as well as the south-eastern region of Muntenia. The northeastern part of Romania has not made significant progress on FDI, mainly due to the lack of adequate infrastructure.

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