Publicat pe 14/02/2018

 London, February 13th, 2018: The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR), Mr. Mihai Daraban, is undergoing a working visit in London during February 12th-15th. On this occasion, Mr. Mihai Daraban had a meeting with H.E. the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Romania in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Mr. Sorin Dan Mihalache.

The main topic was the Brexit’s effects over the bilateral relations between Romania and the UK. Mr. Mihai Daraban underlined the importance of maintaining and consolidating the commercial exchanges between the two countries, emphasizing the stimuli on Romanian exports, and declared that the entire network of Chambers of Commerce and Industry from Romania will continuously inform the business environment regarding Brexit and will offer support to entrepreneurs in finding solutions to diminish the effects that the exit of Great Britain from the UE will have in their activity.

Mr. Mihai Daraban appreciated that Brexit will generate both challenges and opportunities in the context of the bilateral commercial relations with UK and that Romania must undertake all the necessary efforts to consolidate the relation with the foreign partner with whom it registers the highest trade balance surplus. In this context, the President of CCIR highlighted that the British market is the fifth largest destination for Romanian exports, which have increased during January – October 2017 to a value of over 2.15 billion Euros, as against to the imports from this country which reached 1.4 billion Euros.

CCIR’s President also brought into discussion the importance of encouraging British investments to Romania, which at this point have a value of 1.7 billion Euros. Thus, UK occupies only the 12th place in the ranking of foreign investors in our country.

Also, the President of CCIR mentioned that UK, the sixth national economy worldwide, is among the stable partners of Romania, and highlighted the importance of developing and maintaining such partnership for a sustainable growth of our country.

 

Background information

On March 29th, 2017, the British government officially initiated the withdrawal process from the European Union. According to the resolution adopted by the European Parliament regarding the key principles and conditions for approving the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, Great Britain remains a member state until the official leave, this involving rights and obligations, including financial engagements which could extend beyond the date of withdrawal. Any agreement with Great Britain will be based on a balance between rights and obligations and the four liberties of the Single Market remain indivisible.

It must be taken into account that, while the regime of foreign investments in Romania is regulated by the European Union, the negotiations regarding the EU – UK relations in the post-Brexit period will also target aspects regarding the investment relationship between the two parties (National Bank of Romania).

CCIR keep the business environment informed in regards to Brexit:Click here