Romania, Strategic Partner in China-CEE Relations

Romania and China have established diplomatic relations 65 years ago and have a long track of fruitful economic, technologic, scientific and cultural exchanges and cooperation experiences all along this time lapse. During the last few decades they both have undergone major transformations, having, on the one hand, their economic fundamentals substantially changed, and, on the other hand, facing a new international environment, in which their positioning, relations, alliances and integration into the world economy are substantially different. The present paper looks at this bilateral relationship against the backdrop of both the new 16+1 platform and the larger EU-China relations, trying to identify the comparative advantages, complementarities and commonalities which could create the premises for a new, reinforced China-Romania trade and investment relationship. The focus lays on analyzing the bilateral trade, both in terms of volumes and structure, as well as on dissecting the Chinese investment presence in Romania as compared to that in other CEE countries, leading to the conclusion that there is a lot of untapped potential, but also a favourable context to change this state of facts