History is always fascinating and is sad to see parts like this of the industry get destroyed. In every major city, where major industry was (they built quite a lot of things like tractors, cars), now we have Apartment Buildings. In the 90s, after the fall of communism, everything from the industry was bought by members of "Romanian Mafia"(people who had connections and knew how to buy them) and got sold as scrap.
On the other hand, non-IT Romanian industry is very much struggling on almost all fronts, and most of it is nowhere near where it was in terms of competitiveness or just basic output compared to the communist area, thanks in large parts to what the GP was mentioning (a systematic dismantling for parts by opportunistic apparatchiks after the revolution, but also before the revolution itself, as money dried up and the demented regime became more enamored with grandiose projects rather than any practical economy).
Romania's GDP in 2019 was about 5x that of 1989.
The privatization of the inefficient communist industry was indeed a joke. But the free markets and the switch to capitalism allowed a mixture of home-grown entrepreneurial industry and foreign corporations and investments to more than replace and overtake the centrally-planned dying communist-era dinosaurs.
While there has definitely been growth, I doubt industry is more than twice in overall dollars compared to 1989, especially if we exclude IT.
Also note that the largest part of industry today is car making, one of the very few industries whose factories were not entirely sold for parts in the 1990s.
Pre-revolution industry was definitely unproductive and primitive in most sectors compared to EU or US counterparts, but many industries that were actually working, even badly, in the 1970s and 1980s basically don't exist at all today (pottery, clothing, many kinds of chemical industry).
Note that the country is still much much better off today than under the communist regime, in all ways measurable or not - I am in no way seeking to say that "it was better before".
You ok?
> thanks in large parts to what the GP was mentioning
Highly inefficient industries have all but died. Not sure how y’all communist sympathisers have swamped this post and indeed HN.
The leftist governments tried to keep some of it above water (with money grants and granted monopolies) in the name of "the jobs" at huge costs to the rest of the economy and tax payers. The resulting corruption and various party mafias are still marring those societies today.
But eventually various private enterprises grew, took over and became the success stories of today.
Fast forward to today, where we have an economic centralisation and pollution around 3 or 4 major cities. The economic profile is mainly made up of exports of raw goods and services for local use with a low added value. There is a disconnect between the educational system and the economy, the culture (music, theater) has steadily declined.
IT industry is about 5-6% of Bulgaria's GDP.
The former communist economy of Bulgaria was a very different beast altogether. Services were practically non-existent, or entirely in the gray sector where individuals were repairing cars or giving music lessons to children for cash and mutual favours. The structure of society eliminated the need for whole classes of services which are in the private sector today - think private healthcare, travel agencies, consulting agencies, analytic agencies, etc.
The current IT industry in Bulgaria is not a game-changer for the whole country. It consists mainly of outsourcing companies concentrated in Sofia, exploiting the relatively cheap labour there. Few local companies develop their own product and accumulate their capital locally.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locat...
- Soviet Union and Eastern block wanted Romania as a supplier of agricultural goods, which Romaina has refused while staying on the block and sticking to its own policy.
- EU wanted Romaina as a supplier of agricultural goods (and exported labor?), which Romania has accepted and realistically had no other choice.
That is BS. EU never dictated Romania what industries to develop, as Romania is not a planned economy. Private enterprise decides what to create and build, just like in every other free country of the world.
Japan is a free country yet it had an unambiguous policy to industrialize and produce export goods as a government policy. Which has brought a lot of fruit, but if they didn't have one, Japan might have looked more like Philippines today.
Ditto South Korea whose chaebols (such as Samsung, LG, etc) were created by a government decree with "assigned moguls" to lead them.
Not to mention China which is pouring huge amount of effort not just into infrastructure but also industrial capacity.
I'm also quite confident that post-war France and Germany had programs to keep and develop their industrial capacity.
In this regard, not having a policy and letting private enterprises build whatever they want (and can) using their own money is a policy of itself.
It's called capitalism. And freedom.
But my point was: EU did NOT prevent member countries from investing and growing into whatever direction they want. No purely agrarian economies, no "labor exporters" (unless that's what they wanted, of course).
No, its not. What you are describing is called lack of governance. The western wold has entire industries spawned by government projects one way or another. Either by means of research or outright subsidies.
> EU did NOT prevent member countries from investing and growing into whatever direction they want
Yeah it did. The reason you and your brigade comrade cry over not seeing “factories” around cities is because eu regulation means using standards on par with the rest of the eu. This means the barrier to entry in various manufacturing industries is extremely high. Basically romania is forced to perpetually take eu funding to develop industries, often subsidising those of germany and other eu countries. Instead of starting small and iterating from there machinery used in romania needs to meet the same quality standards as those in richer countries. Surely you understand the issue here.