The Regional Climate of Foreign Direct Investments in Romania

The paper aims at identifying the development regions in Romania (corresponding to NUTS III classification), which have similar patterns regarding the investment environment and how these similarities evolved from 2006 to 2008, one year before and one year after becoming a member of the European Union, respectively. Using a cluster analysis technique, we found that the regional disparities increased. In 2008, the areas that contained agglomerations of foreign direct investments attracted even more foreign capital than in 2006 (the capital region and the Western regions) and the areas that lacked investments before are now even more behind the leading regions (the Eastern and Southern regions).