BRD: Poor infrastructure prevents sustainable development in Romania

The lack of transport infrastructure at a certain standard keeps Romania from continuing its development process in a sustained pace and affects workforce flexibility, with impact on households' disposable income and unemployment. “Romania doesn’t have a network of highways. This doesn’t seem essential at a first glance, but I will make a comparison. Let’s take a look at Transylvania and Moldova. We can see the infrastructure in Transylvania was brought to a certain standard, but a lower unemployment rate can also be observed, and a higher disposable income. There is only one express road in Moldova, linking the south to the north, a good road, but we can see a higher unemployment rate and lower disposable income. That’s the difference the infrastructure makes,” said Florian Libocor, chief economist at BRD-Groupe Societe Generale, cited by local Mediafax. He added that the workforce flexibility also depends on infrastructure at a certain standard. “In the US for example, the workforce is very flexible, people commute, today you work in one place, while tomorrow you work in another place. If ways of transport at a minimum standard were also be found in Romania, we wouldn’t have a problem in workforce flexibility,” he added. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com