Dr. Cosmin Dumitrescu,
Minister Plenipotentiary Consul General of Romania in Turin, Italy
The economic diplomacy of our country consists of a complex of integrated activities coordinated by the Government of Romania, which is carried out for the most part by specialists from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism and the Romanian Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade, which aim to support Romanian businesses abroad and stimulate the economic growth of our country in various fields.
Romanian diplomats specialized in promoting and protecting the economic and commercial interests of Romania and Romanian companies abroad, in turn collaborate closely with institutions, organizations, associations, enterprises, research centers and universities.
All diplomatic and consular representations work constantly in fulfilling the obligations and material competencies legally established to promote Romania’s economic, cultural and scientific activities in an integrated manner. The strategic objectives of Romania’s economic diplomacy must necessarily return to consolidating the following aspects:
- a better and more effective supporting the Romanian companies in their efforts to commercially penetrate and extend on emerging markets and strengthen their presence on traditional ones – enhancing the level of business internationalization;
- raising awareness and supporting the international relations and connections for bilateral international activities of local administrations;
- better promotion of business opportunities offered by Romania in order to become more attractive for direct and indirect investments to Romania, especially in economic production activities, tourist flows and relevant talents for industrial innovation;
- better promoting the Romanian companies investments
The institutional support provided through economic diplomacy activities for the internationalization of Romanian businesses aims the main objective of increasing Romania’s presence in foreign markets and is considered to be the main missions of all diplomats of any nation, who need to be constantly committed to promoting the success of Romanian businesses abroad, contributing to the economic growth of our country and its influence and economic footprint at regional, European and global levels.
To accomplish these tasks, the three central institutions mentioned above, together with diplomats and consuls within the diplomatic missions and consular offices of Romania, provide Romanian companies with professional business development support, integrated coordination tools for promoting internationalization initiatives, relevant information and updated analyses relevant to the interests of Romanian and foreign companies involved in the effort to develop the Romanian economy and in producing wealth and prosperity on homeland.
A real and compliant support for business development is provided by the competent public institutions and by diplomats and consuls involved in the implementation of the economic diplomacy strategy, through well focused and customized actions specific to each business environment, both at the institutional level of the central administration and at that of diplomatic missions and consular offices abroad, through concrete measures taken together with partners from foreign governments and international organizations, aimed at supporting the interests of the Romanian business system in extending on new markets, getting contracts and orders for products made by the Romanian economic actors, implementing foreign investments in Romania and Romanian investments in other countries, managing critical issues and participating in international economic and trade negotiations.
The integrated coordination tools for promoting internationalization initiatives offered by the economic diplomacy system are implemented by organizing, together with all stakeholders that are responsible for the internationalization of businesses, promotional events and activities such as economic and business missions on the markets that offer real opportunities, country presentations in Romania and abroad, business forums in Romania and abroad, study visits for institutional and foreign business delegations and business2business meetings.
The information and analytic tools provided by diplomats and economic and commercial consuls efficiently integrate real-time new economic market features, new and relevant facts about the characteristics and opportunities of the foreign markets where they operate, the emergence of opportunities to win orders and tenders, as well as about the typical initiatives of the economic systems involved in their own economic diplomacy activity.
The updated analyses carried out by diplomats and economic consuls are delivered to the beneficiaries through materials and studies of the evolving trends of the international economic system and individual foreign markets in order to determine the observance and pursuit of methodologies of strategic economic and commercial action that are carried out with a natural and unforced correlation at the national, regional and European level, appropriate in the business strategies of each beneficiary company depending on the specifics of the field of activity and action. The materials provided by diplomats and consuls can integrate analytical and statistical aspects regarding the performance of foreign trade and trade by sectors in Romania and in the countries of accreditation, broken down by areas, countries of origin and destination.
The newest and most interesting challenge for modern economic diplomacy is undoubtedly constituted by the imperatives of the directives of assertive support for research and innovation.
The most important priority for all governments of developed countries is to bring and maintain a path of economic growth and social progress.
Ensuring the economy’s solid financial foundations, increasing investments, and strengthening infrastructure are directly linked to making the education system more efficient and adapting it to the needs of industry by stimulating research and development monetized industrially and commercially.
Efforts aimed at economic recovery at the national level cannot be sustainable in fact without the adequacy of much more proactive economic and commercial promotion action at the international level for the simple reason that all modern economies have become increasingly affected by developments on a global scale.
All national economic diplomacy systems have already understood the essential need to promote innovative businesses, which manifest themselves economically and financially in markets mainly through small and medium- sized technological enterprises. This type of international economic and commercial promotion is necessarily synchronized with industrial-academic cooperation in the field of applied research that proves a productive industrial and commercial potential.
In this context, it has become almost vital to develop new capacities of diplomatic missions and economic consuls in the sense of raising the level of skills and creating opportunities to identify the future needs of Romanian company partners and, thus, new opportunities for innovative Romanian entrepreneurs, who already excel in terms of economic appreciation on global technological markets.
In the sense of what has been shown above, it becomes essential to change the training methods of diplomats and economic consuls both in the sense of accumulating relevant know-how and by acquiring basic information about the Romanian research, development and innovation system.
The analytical capacities within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be augmented by collaboration with partners with specific expertise in new fields of innovation such as universities and research institutes.
The final challenge for economic diplomacy is to provide conditions of potential equality in terms of knowledge of markets and their specificities in order to ensure a positive perspective of the competitiveness of the Romanian economy and Romanian companies. The differences between developed and emerging markets in terms of quality requirements are practically no more and indicator. Economic and commercial success has become impossible without promoting innovative production with a significant added value.
The opportunity to benefit from the innovation that is being carried out throughout the world is much greater for all companies, and in a globalized world, supply chains connect continents, products circulate freely or with facilities to transnational markets, but researchers and innovators also work more and more together.
In such an interdependent European and global economic and academic context, the development of international cooperation in research and innovation, with the combined involvement of relevant authorities, academia, as well as the support and direct commitment of high-tech companies, transforms the economic diplomacy action of all diplomats and consuls specialized in this field into a strategic aspect of critical importance for the resilience and economic development of Romania, the need for action for their specialization becoming immediate.
