British Ambassador to Bucharest, Martin Harris talks in an interview about Romania and the challenges faced by British investors, what are their expectations. In his opinion, Romania’s work force is well qualified, which is an important advantage for Romania. The Ambassador offers the example of the pharmaceutical producer GSK who built a factory to supply the local market in Brasov, central Romania but soon discovered that the labour force is so well qualified that the factory became one of the best GSK factories across the world especially in terms of qualified chemist engineers.

When asked about the main problems that British investors face in Romania, Ambassador Marin Harris said that there are many opportunities in Romania for them but the main challenges are to convince small British companies to export in Romania for their first time. He said that the main issues for them is to find the right contacts, to know the potential sectors and where there is potential for sales.

However, he said that bigger investors face more serious issues like the lack of fiscal and legislative predictability, the necessity of an efficient judicial system. To Great Britain, Romania is the closest market that is currently developing: it has tremendous potential and is a big market, HE Ambassador Martin Harris said.

About the crisis in Romania, the British representative said that Romania has managed to limit the effects of the recession and is slowly but steadily turning towards growth. The difficulty, in his opinion is to find new sources for a future sustainable growth. Regarding the commercial exchange between the two countries, HE Martin Harris said that the key exports from Great Britain to Romania are textiles, cars and pharmaceuticals. The main imports, he said are telecommunications equipments, electronic machinery and clothes.