There are numerous riches of the Romanian subsoil, but the most important is undoubtedly oil, extracted mainly in the Ploiesti and Pitesti area, i.e. along the Southern Carpathians, then in Oltenia (Ticleni etc.) and in Moldavia (Moinesti). With oil, natural gas is also extracted, of which rich deposits are found in Transylvania (Delenii, Copsa Mica) and which is widely used in the production of electricity for both domestic and industrial use. There are also significant deposits of lignite, located in the Jiu region (Southern Transylvanian Alps) and near the border with Hungary, and of coal, also used above all in the production of electricity: the whole coal sector is, however, in serious crisis due to its poor profitability; most of the miners in the mining valleys lost their jobs in the 1990s. According to cheeroutdoor, the quantities of oil and gas extracted, up to the 1950s the largest in Europe, have become increasingly insufficient for the needs of Romanian industry and civil society; the country is therefore forced to import just under 50% of its fuel needs. Metal ores are not very abundant, including iron, coming mainly from the Poiana Ruscăi massif, where the proximity to large coalfields led to the rise of the important steel complexes of Hunedoara, as well as bauxite, silver, manganese, gold, lead and copper; large are the deposits of rock salt. The electricity sector is at a good level, covering almost all the needs with a production for 2/3 of thermal origin and for the rest produced with hydroelectric plants (among the major plants there is the one on the dams of the Porte di Ferro, on the Danube, shared with Serbia-Montenegro) and with nuclear power plants, from which 15% of total electricity production comes. The key sector of the Romanian economy remains industry, which largely participates in the formation of national income (around 37% of GDP in 2008) and employs one third of the active population (approx. 29%, 2002); but the heavy and basic industry, traditionally the leading sector during the communist forty years, is in full crisis after the years of transition (in truth it was even before, during the squeeze of the Eighties) due to machinery obsolescence and loss of international competitiveness.
The large steel plants above all, built in the fifties and sixties in Galati, Hunedoara, Resita etc., as well as metallurgical plants that process non-ferrous ores, have greatly decreased the production and employment of labor. The mechanical industry has had better luck, in particular the automobile industry, thanks also to foreign investments and the rapid development of an internal car market, which was almost non-existent before 1989; less good conditions, in the period 2000-2005, of railway constructions, industrial vehicles and agricultural machinery (in Craiova). The most dynamic sectors from the mid-nineties onwards are instead that of textiles-clothing and footwear (concentrated in Bucharest and especially in the Timisoara region), that of woodworking (furniture factories, especially in Transylvania and Bucharest), that of machine tools and the food sector (in the lead the milling sector, in the main cereal trade centers such as Brăila, Galati, Arad; there are also numerous sugar refineries, breweries, oil mills, canneries, dairy factories). In textiles, in addition to the traditional production of yarns and fabrics with domestic raw materials (linen, cotton and wool), there has been a formidable expansion of packaging, thanks above all to the decentralization of many large and small Italian and German companies to Romania. Chemicals (nitrogen fertilizers, plastics) and petrochemicals also maintained good positions, as did hydrocarbon refining (large refineries in Ploiesti and Pitesti) and the pulp and paper industry (plants in Bacău, Suceava). The construction industry and the materials destined for it also retain a certain importance, linked to the development of the internal housing market (cement factories in Tirgu Jiu, Turda, Medgidia etc.); Finally, we should mention the sector of traditional semi-artisan processes, such as porcelain (Cluj-Napoca), leather objects, etc. As everywhere in the economies of countries in transition from the socialist system to the market system, also in Romania the most important development after 1989 concerned the tertiary sector, trade and services; but this development was also very uneven and with serious shortcomings. A strong delay is recorded, for example, in the modernization of transport infrastructures, while modern communication networks have rapidly grown; trade has experienced a real boom, while tourism has not followed the same pace.
The railway system (approx. 11,400 km) has essentially maintained the situation it saw in the early 1980s: in practice there are two almost completely separate networks, one internal and the other external to the Carpathians, connected to each other by some trans-Carpathian lines; despite the rather eccentric position, the capital is still the main hub of railway communication routes, as well as road ones, even these not yet fully adequate to the needs of the country: the motorway network in 2002 was still very modest (only 110 km) and normal roads (asphalted ones approx. 100,000 km) too slow and busy to ensure quick connections to goods and people. Widely exploited is the Danube, even if in 1999 the war activities in neighboring Serbia (in particular the bombings carried out by the despite the rather eccentric position, the capital is still the main hub of railway communication routes, as well as road ones, even these not yet fully adequate to the needs of the country: the motorway network in 2002 was still very modest (only 110 km) and normal roads (asphalted ones approx. 100,000 km) too slow and busy to ensure quick connections to goods and people. Widely exploited is the Danube, although in 1999 the war activities in neighboring Serbia (in particular the bombings carried out by the despite the rather eccentric position, the capital is still the main hub of railway communication routes, as well as road ones, even these not yet fully adequate to the needs of the country: the motorway network in 2002 was still very modest (only 110 km) and normal roads (asphalted ones approx. 100,000 km) too slow and busy to ensure quick connections to goods and people. Widely exploited is the Danube, although in 1999 the war activities in neighboring Serbia (in particular the bombings carried out by the the motorway network in 2002 was still very modest (only 110 km) and the normal roads (approx. 100,000 km asphalted) too slow and busy to ensure rapid connections to goods and people. Widely exploited is the Danube, although in 1999 the war activities in neighboring Serbia (in particular the bombings carried out by the the motorway network in 2002 was still very modest (only 110 km) and the normal roads (approx. 100,000 km asphalted) too slow and busy to ensure rapid connections to goods and people. Widely exploited is the Danube, although in 1999 the war activities in neighboring Serbia (in particular the bombings carried out by the NATO on bridges and river locations) have blocked or made navigation on the river very difficult in the following years. Major Danube ports are Brăila and Galati. The port of Constance on the Black Sea is of much greater importance.
Air communications are constantly expanding; the country has numerous international airports: the most important are those of Bucharest / Otopeni, Bucharest / Băneasa, Costanza, Timisoara, Suceava, Arad, Târgu Mures, Craiova. Among the communication networks, the vast network of pipelines should be notedfor the transport of oil and gas (approx. 6000 km in total); fixed telephone lines are expanding but still completely insufficient (4.3 million sets in 2004), while the cellular network has developed much more rapidly, reaching 6.9 million users in 2004. Romania’s international trade is growing rapidly, but remains rather unbalanced with a strong prevalence of imports: between 2004 and 2005 exports grew by 17%, imports by 22%, thanks to the increase in domestic consumption induced by the decrease in taxes on higher incomes. The largest share in exports is no longer held, as during the years of the Socialist Republic, by industrial machinery and equipment but by clothing and footwear, followed by metals, wood, furniture, refined fuels, building materials, food products; in the import chapter in the first row are machine tools and raw fuels, followed by chemicals, automobiles, durable goods, foodstuffs. Italy was Romania’s main trading partner in 2005, followed at a distance by Germany, France, Russia and Turkey. Tourism has not yet resumed the role it had in the socialist era, when the Romanian beaches on the Black Sea were “the” sea for the citizens of all of Eastern Europe. The country remains very rich in first-rate tourist destinations, both for natural beauty and artistic treasures, but the accommodation facilities still appear inadequate, even if investments in the sector increase year by year. In addition to the traditional seaside resorts, Romanians try to enhance new and specialized tourist destinations, such as the ski resorts of the Carpathians, or the areas of Transylvania that have remained more intact with medieval villages and pristine forests; in 2005 the overall volume of the economy linked to tourism placed Romania in only 57th place in the world.
