allow me to multinationally introduce

This one's going to have lots and lots of figures, but bear with me, as I realized I've never properly introduced Romania's international business environment to my readers.

Let's start on a positive note from E&Y, with Romania being the 6^th most attractive European country for investors in the next 3 years [Ernst & Young - 2012 European Attractiveness Survey].

Looks like business leaders across the world consider Romania to be  a valuable destination for investments.

If you're wondering which are currently the top investing countries in Romania, KPMG has the answer to this one:
Where is the investment coming from?

• Netherlands 32%
• Austria 13%
• Germany 10%
• Cyprus 8% (well, not actually Cyprus, but registered there]
• France 8%

….followed by Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Switzerland, Greece.

Yes, but to which sector is the foreign direct investment going?

By the way, in Europe, the sectors in which were made the biggest investments remain professional services and software production. I work in one of those two.

Romania even has an association, since 1997, named Foreign Investors Council (FOC) that represents the interests of foreign investors community and lobby for new measures to attract capital.

But then there’s the negative note.

Between 2007 and 2010, the number of companies with foreign capital established in Romania dropped by 60%, from 15,700 to 6,300 [2010], says the Trade Register.

In Romania, the foreign direct investments value was at its best in 2005-2008 with €19 Billion, while now it's less than €2 Billion.

Only 42 of the companies in Fortune Global 500 have established their presence in Romania. Looking at the investors’ countries from a different perspective, let's see from which countries we attracted Fortune 500 investors:

• France
• Germany
• SUA
• Italy
• Japan.

I plan, for one day, to track the Romanian investments and see where the companies headquartered here chose to open subsidiaries.