Beside these businesslike aspects Romania is a very hospitable country and qua culture, nature and landscape a perfect combination of France, Italy and Switzerland.
The European country Romania is situated in the southeast part of Central Europe and exist of 238.391 km2 and has over 22,5 million inhabitants (94,2 inhabitants/km2).
The agriculture has a prominent place in the economy. After the downfall of the communism a reconstruction of the agriculture has taken place and at this time over 82 % of the agricultural land is in private hands.
The restitution of the agricultural land to the population has lead to a small-scale agricultural structure, of which 87 % of the agricultural farms have less than 4 hectare. These scattering can be found again in the average business size of the dairy farms (1,5 milk cow/farm). Only 1.350 of the farms have more than 20 milk cows, of which 378 farms with more than 51 cows.
Opportunities
According Johan Cruijff “every disadvantage has his advantage” (or the other way round). This counts also for the development/investment opportunities in the primary sector in Romania.
The purchase and lease prices for agriculture land are low, as well as the costs for labour. There is an enormous shortage of 1st quality agricultural products, because the consumers in the big city’s have less access/want to “own house and garden products”; a lot of allowance (50 % of the investment with a maximum of 1 million per applicant) are available for investments in the agriculture. Further they work hard to harmonize the regulation and legislation (and the observing of this) with the current EU-legislation including the payments for the hectare premiums.
A lot of international businesses have an establishment in Romania like RoyalFriesland Foods (4 plants), Campina (co-production), Danone, Hochland, Cargill, Toepfer and all the European banks have a big market share (ING, ABN-AMRO, Raffeisen, Volksbank etc).
Beside these businesslike aspects Romania is a very hospitable country and qua culture, nature and landscape a perfect combination of France, Italy and Switzerland.
For more information look at www.friesian.ro
Martin de Jong,The Friesian