President
Basescu will visit London next week for talks with David Cameron. High
on their agenda will be economic growth [*ro, PDF brochure 871 KB, new window]. This question is now urgent.
Both our countries are emerging from recession, but the recovery is
slow. Growth is forecast to be around 1.7% in the UK this year. The
figure for Romania is about the same. So is the EU average.
Meanwhile, the emerging economies are growing much faster – China by 9.6%, India at 8.2% (according to the IMF). At this rate, there won’t be a single European country in the top 10 economies of the world after 2050.
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So what are we going to do about it? Or more specifically what are Romania and the UK – together – going to do about it?
If
you can’t get growth from government spending or domestic consumption,
you need to increase your exports and attract more investment from
abroad. You also need to innovate, setting up new businesses and
marketing new products.
British
businesses are doing this in Romania. Trade between our two countries
is growing fast – by 32% last year. British companies are investing in
new technologies here. One firm, Betfair, employed over a hundred
software engineers in Cluj throughout the economic crisis. Another,
Vodafone, will invest half a billion euros over the next five years,
getting mobile internet out into Romania’s rural communities.
But
there is also a lot we can do together at the European level. Romania
is the seventh largest country in the EU. It has established a strong
reputation for economic management during the crisis. Its voice counts.
The UK wants to partner with Romania in Brussels to extend and complete
the Single Market so that it covers energy, services and the digital
economy, to promote Free Trade agreements with Moldova and other EU
trade partners, to reduce the burden of bureaucracy and regulation and
encouraging new businesses, new jobs and innovation.
The
Single Market has been the big success story of the EU. Our ability to
trade goods freely with each other, with no extra costs for tariffs and
common technical standards, has been a huge boost for the Romanian
economy and for Britain’s too. But we can go much further, both in developing trade within the EU and with our main trading partners.
That is the challenge we both face. Romania and the UK can work together to meet it.