718 METALURGIJA 54 (2015) 4, 718-720C. I. RĂBONȚU, A. G. BABUCEA, L. PALIU-POPA, A. BĂLĂCESCU A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRADE IN METALLURGICAL… [601207]

718 METALURGIJA 54 (2015) 4, 718-720C. I. RĂBONȚU, A. G. BABUCEA, L. PALIU-POPA, A. BĂLĂCESCU
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRADE
IN METALLURGICAL PRODUCTS IN 2009 – 2013. CASE STUDY: ROMANIA VS. CROATIA
Received – Primljeno: 2014-10-21
Accepted – Prihvaćeno: 2015-03-15
Review Paper – Pregledni radISSN 0543-5846
METABK 54(4) 718-720 (2015)
UDC – UDK 669.011:669.015:498:486:382.6:382.5=111
C.I. Răbonțu, A.G. Babucea, L. Paliu-Popa, A. B ălăcescu, “Constantin
Brancusi” University of Targu Jiu, Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, Targu Jiu, RomaniaMetallurgy is a domain of the secondary sector, which represented for years in Romania, as in other former Com-
munist countries, a very important activity for gross domestic product and employment. Today, many enterprises which were representative in Romania for the metallurgical industry long ago are targets of the sellers of scrap metal, the scrap metal trade representing a segment that has gained momentum in recent years. Croatia, as a mem-ber country of the EU has a special contribution in the trade with metallurgical products and we have proposed in this paper to identify which is the level of international trade with metallurgical products of Romania and Croatia, which included a comparison between these countries. For this aim we’ll use the data provided by Eurostat and World Trade Organization (WTO).
Key words: metallurgical products, Romania, Croatia, exports, imports
INTRODUCTION
Metallurgy is an important industry for the econom-
ic development of many countries in South-Eastern Eu-
rope.
Metallurgical industry in these countries is highly
concentrated in a few large companies with high weight in employment, production and exports. In our study we will focus on the impact of the financial crisis in the metallurgy from Romania (Ro) and Croatia (Cr).
This paper is a continuation of earlier concerns of
the authors in this area, resulting in two articles pub-lished in “Metalurgija – Journal for Theory and Practice in Metallurgy” entitled “Metallurgical industry in Ro-mania in the context of the economic crisis” [1] and “An analysis of the turnover index evolution in metal-lurgy during 2000 – 2012, the case of Romania” [2].
The economies of both analyzed countries have
been severely affected by the global financial crisis, thus in 2009 the Romanian GDP registered a contrac-tion by 6,6 %, while Croatian GDP has contracted with 6,9 %.
In the following period the Romanian economy has
shown signs of recovery, while Croatian economy re-mains in recession [3].
Sectoral breakdown of GDP in 2013 indicates that in
both countries, the Services (Ro – 59,5 %, HR – 69,2 %) constitute the main part , followed by Industry (Ro – 33 %, Cr – 25,8 %) and Agriculture (Ro – 7,5 %, Cr – 5 %) [4].Metallurgy, as basic industry of the Romanian econ-
omy, has an important role in the development of many economic sectors, providing the raw materials neces-sary to manufacture an extremely varied range of fin-ished products.
For Croatia, the light industry is an important sector
of the economy, and Croatia’s main Manufacturing in-dustries include chemicals and plastics, machine tools, fabricated metal products, electronics, pig iron and rolled steel products, aluminium processing, paper and wood products (including furniture), building materials (including cement), textiles, shipbuilding, petroleum and petroleum refining, food processing and beverages [5].
ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE –
ROMANIA VS. CROATIA
It is widely accepted that foreign economic ex-
changes can contribute to the economic growth of a
country. Although Romanian GDP is on a rising trend, the export potential of Romania is quite limited, and the Romanian economy depends on imports to a great ex-tent as can be seen in the Table 1.
Analysis of the trade balance shows an inefficiency
of foreign trade in both countries. However, the impact of the crisis on foreign trade is different in the two coun-tries. It can be seen that in Romania the decline of im-ports increased as compared to exports and the foreign trade of Croatia has experienced a fall of exports.
According to the data provided by the Romanian
National Institute of Statistics, a significant proportion in the structure of exports and imports are owned by

719C. I. RĂBONȚU et al.: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRADE IN METALLURGICAL PRODUCTS IN 2009 – 2013. …
METALURGIJA 54 (2015) 4, 718-720groups of products: machinery and transport equipment
(42,0 % for export and import 35,0 %) and other manu-factured products (32,5 % to export, respectively 29,8 % and import) [4].
According to the data provided by the Croatian Cen-
tral Bureau of Statistics in 2013, exports of Croatia are structured such as: 16,8 % for agricultural products, 18,9 % fuels and mining products and 61,7 % manufactures. In the case of imports the structure is the same, the manu-factured products are being at the same level, observing the differences in fuels and mining products which repre-sent 25,5 % of total imports and agricultural products which are less imported, respectively 12,7 % [7].
The analysis of the main partners of Romania shows
that both in imports and exports the European Union is in the first place, Turkey is in the second in exports by Romania and no. 5 in imports. Russian Federation oc-cupies important places both in Romania’s exports (3 rd place) and in the case of imports (4 th place). China is an important partner in the 3 rd place in imports, while U.S. on the 5 th place in exports by Romania, respec-tively 1,9 %. (WTO, 2013).
Regarding Croatia’s main partners in export activity
58,2 % are meant for the European Union, followed by 12,8 % to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Among the first five partners in commercial export
activity of Croatia are found Serbia with 4,3 %, the Rus-sian Federation with 3,4 % and United States with 2,9 %.
In what concerns imports the top of 5 trading part-
ners are: the European Union (27) first place with 62,5 %, followed by the Russian Federation with 7,6 %, Chi-na with a share of 7,1 %, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with 3,5 percent of imports and Switzerland with 2,2 %.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STEEL AND
IRON TRADE OF ROMANIA AND CROATIA
The purpose of this paper is to compare the trade of
iron and steel products of Romania and Croatia. In this
respect, the used data provide by the World Trade Or-ganization (WTO) and Eurostat.
As stated by the EU to which both countries belong
and to align its requirements „Trade is particularly im-portant for steel. Given the indispensable role of trade as a driver of economic growth in the globalised steel market, the Commission strongly supports the liberali-zation of international trade under the umbrella of the WTO. At a bilateral level, negotiations of trade agree-ments, in particular Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), are other key instruments to achieve a high level for EU companies both in terms of access to markets and to raw materials under conditions of fair competition. To as-sess the overall impact these agreement s have on EU industries and on the EU economy, each trade agree-ment is subject to an analysis of the consequences of the proposed deal for the EU once negotiations are con-cluded, in addition to the ex-ante impact assessment un-dertaken before adoption of the negotiating directives, and the sustainability impact assessment carried out during the trade negotiations. The statistical informa-tion is important for the sector, allowing rapid analysis of increasingly volatile steel import trends and taking the necessary initiatives on a strong factual base”. [9].
In order to answer the final aim of the paper we pre-
sent the exports and imports with the world by manu-factured products and as part of their iron and steel trade to both analyzed countries.
Table 2 Iron and steel trade of Croatia with the world in the period 2009 – 2013 / Million dollars [8]
Flow Indicator 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Exports Manufactures 6 .947 7 .972 8 .866 7 .641 7 .262
Iron
andsteel 121 123 174 72 126
Imports Manufactures 14 .792 13 .460 14 .346 12 .744 12 .844
Iron
andsteel 867 799 907 741 691
As can be seen (Table 2) in the period under review
Croatia’s exports of manufactured products increased in 2011 after which the trend is descending. Not the same evolution is shown in the exports of iron and steel, which is one oscillating with the minimum of $ 72 mil-lion in 2012 and $ 174 million in 2010. As a share in manufactured products we note that it is one with a low level that is found in the period from 0,94 % in 2012 up to 1,96 % in 2011 which is the best year of exports of Croatia with these product categories. Regarding im-ports, can be observed a better value evolution but at the expense of the balance of trade with iron and steel, namely a doubling of exports with increases and de-clines from one year to another and the proportion of imports of iron and steel between a minimum of 5,37 % in 2013 to a maximum of 6,32 % in 2011.
Regarding the Romanian trade compared with the
Croatian trade we also note that the export is lower than the import in the analyzed period, but it is at a level well above that of Croatia. In terms of values, we see that exports have increased in 2009 from 1 614 mil dollars to 3 404 mil dollars in 2011 and gradually decreased Table 1 Evolution of foreign trade of the two countries analyzed in the past two years / Billion EUR [6]
Exports Imports Trade balance
2012 2013 growth rate / % 2012 2013 growth rate / % 2012 2013
EU28 1 .683,1 1 .737,0 3,2 1 .798,6 1 .682,4 -6,5 -1 15,5 54,6
Cr
9,6 8,9 – 7,4 16,2 15,8 – 2,8 – 6,6 – 6,8
Ro 45,0 49,6 10,1 54,6 55,3 1,2 – 9,6 – 5,7

720C. I. RĂBONȚU et al.: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRADE IN METALLURGICAL PRODUCTS IN 2009 – 2013. …
METALURGIJA 54 (2015) 4, 718-720until 2013 when the Romanian iron exports represented
4,71 % of exports of manufactured products, the lowest proportion since the study. Imports of iron and steel have a trend similar to that of imports with a maximum in 2010 and a minimum in 2009, the year of the begin-ning of our analysis and the first year in which the dev-astating effects of the crisis are seen.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a general overview of metallur-
gy in Croatia and Romania with some key information about the potential markets in both countries.
If is take into account only the commercial aspects
of the commercial activity of both analyzed countries we conclude that Romania has a much more intense ac-tivity in generally manufactured products and iron and steel in particular. The variations from one year to an-other are different, in the sense that a year of growth for a country is not necessarily distributed to the other. For example, 2013 is a year of decline for exports of Croatia and growth for Romania, and in the imports the de-crease in year 2010 for Croatia is the year of growth for Romania. So, it is easy to conclude that although they are EU member countries, domestic factors dominate differently their trade with products of iron and steel in both countries. We also notice a poor trade balance for both countries, Romania’s deficit being lower referring to the total weight of the category analyzed in manufac-tured products. As a similarity between the two coun-tries, we notice that in all commercial activity among the first partners in first place for exports and imports, are the EU and the Russian Federation, the USA and China in the category of partners for imports.
REFERENCES
[1] Zaharia M., Babucea A. G., B ălăcescu A., Răbonțu C. I.,
Metallurgical industry in Romania in the context of the economic crisis in Metalurgija 54 (2015) 2, 445-448.
[2] Babucea A. G., Zaharia M., B ălăcescu A., An analysis of
the turnover index evolution in metallurgy during 2000 – 2012, The case of Romania Metalurgija 53 (2014) 1, 109-112.
[3] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&i
nit=1&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tec00115
[4] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/in-dex.php/National_accounts_and_GDP
[5] Loncke A., Gicquel E., Metal Industry, Belgian Economic
and Commercial Office, July 2012.
[6] Eurostat (online data code: ext_lt_intratrd)[7] http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/statistici/comunicate/co-mert_ext/a13/ce12r13.pdf
[8] http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/metals-minerals/fi-les/steel-action-plan_en.pdf
[9] http://stat.wto.org/StatisticalProgram/WSDBViewData.aspx?Language=E
Note: The responsible translator for English language is C. Dicu Targu
Jiu, RomaniaTable 3 Iron and steel trade of Romania with the world in
the period 2009 – 2013 / Million dollars [8]
Flow Indicator 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Ex-
portsManufactures 32 .625 39 .546 49 .466 45 .393 51 .141
Iron
andsteel 1 .614 2 .569 3. 404 2 .782 2 .409
Im
–
portsManufactures 42 .147 48 .084 58 .316 52 .380 56 .441
Iron
andsteel 2 .104 2 .858 3 .921 3 .212 3 .055