Exports picked up speed unexpectedly in September, going up by35% to an all-time high of 3.5 billion euros. A number of 17,500employees of Dacia and Nokia alone generated one fifth of theexport growth nine months into the year, which stood at 25%.
Exports picked up speed in September driven by demand from abroad,especially on the automotive segment, and reached a peak of 35%,compared with the same month of last year.
The Dacia cars made in Piteşti and the Nokia phones made in Clujwere this year's stars, with a significant contribution to exportrebound. Both Renault and Nokia bet a lot on foreign markets andthus managed to maintain growth at a time when the Romanian economywas in recession. The problem is that Dacia has 13,500 employeesand Nokia 4,000, while they pay an average of 300-euro wage,therefore the annual wages amount to several tens of millions ofeuros and are not enough to help consumer spending reboot.
The two generate about 11% of Romania's exports and contributedalmost one fifth (910 million euros) of the export increase from21.4 billion euros in the first nine months of 2009 to 26.8 billioneuros in the same time in 2010.
