This was the first month when the volume of orders registered an upward trend, after four months of declines. Romanian enterprises began receiving fewer orders as of October 2008, when the crisis officially hit Romania. From October 2008 to January 2009, new industrial orders fell gradually, reaching -14.5 percent in this year’s first month.
Moreover, Romania’s industry registered the lowest annual decline in new orders in the EU in February 2008, of 15.9 percent. However, specialists in the field continue to be pessimistic. Florin Pogonaru, President of the Romanian Businesspeople Association (AOAR), said that the explanation for the February situation is that Romanian products are cheap, as they are “crisis” products.
