DYNAMICS OF ROMANIA’S COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES ON THE MAIN EXPORT MARKETS (AGRI-FOOD SECTOR)

The objective of this paper is to analyze the importance of export competitiveness of Romanian agri-food products with a new perspective on the decade 2009-2019. The analyzed period includes the year 2009, two years after Romania’s accession to the European Union and also the beginning of the world economic crisis, in counterpart with 2019, a year of world economic growth. The paper also offers a critical retrospective of the perspective of competitive dynamics by evaluating the performance of the Romanian agri-food sector, and in this sense three main aspects are taken into consideration: (1) the hierarchy evolution of the products exported in the reference years 2009 and 2019, (2) the evolution of the performance of the key products exported in 2009 and (3) position of key products exported in 2019 at the level of 2009. From the total of 24 agri-food products (according to HS Harmonized System classification), the top 5 agri-food products exported by Romania at a level of 2 and 4 digits were selected and analyzed, focusing on indicators such as: percentage in total exports, variation, price, market share and strategic destination market.