Country name: Romania
Geography: Southeastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Ukraine
Area: 237,500 sq km
Population: 22,303,552 (July 2006 est.)
Capital: Bucharest
Language: Romanian (official), Hungarian, German
Currency: leu (ROL) is being phased out in 2006; “new” leu (RON) was introduced in 2005 due to currency revaluation: 10,000 ROL = 1 RON
Natural resources: petroleum (reserves declining), timber, natural gas, coal, iron ore, salt, arable land, hydropower
The Republic of Romania is a country situated in the Southeastern Part of Europe, occupying the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. Its total area is around 237,500 square kilometers and it has a population of approximately 22,000,000 people. The capital city of the country is Bucharest. The country shares borders with five other countries: Bulgaria to the South, Serbia to the Southwest, Hungary to the Northwest, Ukraine to the North and Moldova to the Northeast. It also has a coastline on the Black sea. The greater part of the relief of Romania comprises of the Carpathian Mountains. About a third of the land is comprised of plains. The country is also distinguished for the large amount of forests that are a significant part of the relief. The western part of the Carpathian Mountains is less forested and people live even in the highest altitudes. The climate of the country is transitional and diverse to its location and large territory. In the central and northeast part of the country, a weak Atlantic influence is dominant which is depicted by relatively high humidity; in the southeast, mild Mediterranean influences have effect on the climate. The country is distinguished with harsh winters with regular snowfall and mild summers with frequent rain.
Romania, as Bulgaria, was under the Ottoman Empire rule but eventually gained its independence in 1878. However, the country adopted the name of Romania when they gained autonomy which happened around 1856. After the WW I, Romania gained new territories. After the WW II, in which Romania together with Germany invaded USSR, was overtaken by the Russians and became a communist satellite of the Soviet Union. Romania’s nightmare was the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who imposed his power in cruel ways and draconian rules. Eventually, Ceausescu was executed at the end of 1980s . However, the country did not get rid of the communist regime immediately but had to wait until 1996 when the Communist party in charge was taken down. Romania began its transformation into a capitalist economy. The country joined NATO in 2004 and subsequently the EU in 2007.
Around 90% of the population is ethnically Romanian, with small groups of minorities. The largest of those minorities is that of the Hungarians which comprises more than 6%. An increasing minority is that of the gypsies. Having in mind the homogeneous population of the country we can infer that the most widely spoken would be Romanian, and in true that is the case. More than 90% of the population speaks Romanian, which has Latin roots and is quite different from Cyrillic despite the fact that Romania is surrounded by countries using Cyrillic.
Romania belongs to the Eastern Orthodox church.
The country is a parliamentary republic. Its currency is new leu (RON) which replaced the old currency or the ‘old’ leu (ROL) due to reevaluation of the currency (10,000 ROL=1 RON). 1 Us dollar can be exchanged for 2.233 RON, while 1 Euro can be exchanged for 3.559 RON.
The economy of Romania undertook a slow transition towards a market-based economy since not many Romanian citizens had the capital to invest in state-owned enterprises and in addition to that those state enterprises were not a good opportunity for foreign investors having in mind the communist nature of managing the state corporations. However, the country’s success in the past years shows the progress of its economy. For the last few years, the country has experienced a steady growth in GDP of about 5% a year. In addition to that foreign investment and the creation of small retail businesses help the economy to sustain the growth and also keep the inflation rates low. Although, Romanian government can have pride in achieving low unemployment rates ( around 4 % for 2007), it still has to fight against poverty since according to most recent data around one fourth of the population is below the poverty line. Corruption still remains a problem with which Romanian authorities have to fight in order to further develop the business environment. In 2007, the country experiences an increase in inflation which was due to economy’s dependence on agriculture, thus natural disasters influenced the prices of food.
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