Its developing economy and its location at the intersection of central, eastern and southeastern Europe make Romania an important trading partner for many countries. Romania, which is a critical alternative market for both the furniture sector and the woodworking machinery sector, has an important potential especially for the woodworking machinery sector.
In this issue, under the title of Alternative Market, we examined Romania, which is at the intersection of central, eastern and southeastern Europe, surrounded by Ukraine in the north and northeast, Moldova in the northeast, Hungary in the northwest, Serbia in the southwest, Bulgaria in the south and the Black Sea in the east.
Romania, which is the sixth most populous country in the European Union, has a population of 19 million. Romania, which is shown among the countries with superiority in furniture production due to its low labor costs, is an important market for Turkey both in the furniture sector and in the woodworking machinery sector. Romania, which is the second largest market in central and eastern Europe after Poland, is expected to further strengthen its position in the world furniture industry in the coming years. Romania, the 48th largest economy in the world, has a gross national product of 242 billion dollars.
25th among 100 countries in furniture production
According to the 2021 preliminary data of the CSIL Furniture Industry Report prepared by the Center for Industrial Studies (CSIL); Romania ranked 25th in furniture production, 12th in exports, 26th in imports and 39th in domestic sales among the 100 countries subject to the report. According to the report; Romania produced a total of 2 billion 974 million dollars of furniture in 2021. In the mentioned year, Romania realized 2 billion 861 million dollars of exports, 1 billion 160 million dollars of imports, and 1 billion 273 million dollars of domestic sales.
The most important export market is Germany
Germany is the most important export market of Romania, which is expected to grow by 4% in its domestic sales in 2022 and 2023. When the data of the CSIL Furniture Sector Report is examined, it is seen that 20.6% of the total furniture imports realized by Romania in 2021 were made to Germany. Germany is followed by France with 12.4 percent, Slovakia with 8.5 percent, Italy with 8.1 percent, the Netherlands with 7.2 percent, the Czech Republic with 6 percent, England with 5.2 percent, and 3.9 percent respectively. followed by Spain with 3.5 percent, Sweden with 3.5 percent, and Belgium with 3.2 percent. Turkey was not among the top 10 countries to which Romania exports furniture in 2021.
Turkey became the fifth country from which Romania imports the most furniture in 2021
Looking at the import data, Romania imported the most furniture from Poland with 20.6 percent in 2021. The country with the most imports after Poland was China with 10.3%. The ranking of countries after China was as follows; Germany 8.8 percent, Italy 8.2 percent, Turkey 8.2, Bulgaria 6.7 percent, Hungary 4.8 percent, Serbia 4.2 percent, Slovakia 3.1 percent, North Macedonia 2.9 percent. According to the 2021 preliminary data of the CSIL Furniture Report; Turkey became the fifth country from which Romania imports the most furniture in 2021. According to TURKSTAT Foreign Trade Data; In 2021, Turkey exported more than 5 billion dollars to Romania. Turkey’s trade relations with Romania, which ranks 12th among the top 20 exporting countries, are expected to increase in the near future.
Turkey’s share in the 70 million dollar market is 4.5 million dollars
Looking at the trade figures of Romania’s woodworking machinery (WM) sector, it is seen that the country imported a total of 69 million 768 thousand dollars of WM in 2020. Turkey’s share in Romania’s total WM imports was limited to 4 million 564 thousand dollars. While Romania’s import from Turkey was 5 million 271 thousand dollars in 2019, this figure was 5 million 258 thousand dollars in 2018. In 2020, Romania imported the machines that make the most various machine operations without changing tools among these operations, with 1 million 461 thousand dollars from Turkey. The import figure for these machines in the previous year remained at the level of 375,000 dollars. The second machine that Romania imported the most from Turkey in 2020 was sawing machines with 872 thousand dollars. Planing, milling or cutting molding machines took the third place with 826 thousand dollars. Planing, milling or cutting molding machines were the machines that Turkey exported the most to Romania in 2019. These machines included machines in the other group with 494 thousand dollars, hole punching or tenoning machines with 329 thousand dollars, bending machines with 304 thousand dollars, splitting, slitting machines with 133 thousand dollars, machining centers with 99 thousand dollars, grinding, sanding or polishing machines followed with 46 thousand dollars.
Looking at Romania’s total WM imports, it is seen that it imported the highest number of saw machines with 15 million 438 thousand dollars in 2020. In the second place is the machines that perform various machine operations with 10 million 365 thousand dollars without changing tools among these processes. The third machine group that Romania imported the most in 2020 was planing, milling or cutting molding machines with 10 million 364 thousand dollars.