Historical Evolutions Of The Romanian International Agri-Food Trade – The Period 1950–1989

The paper is analyzing the evolutions of the Romanian international trade during the centrallyplanned economy period (1989). The changes in the political context of the time resulted in significant changes in the influence spheres of the main European and world powers of the 20th century, and reflected in the economic evolutions, which, in their turn, shaped the main characteristics of the country’s international trade. The objective of the paper is to highlight, based on the available statistical data, the main trends of the general and agri-food trade, in terms of value, volume, geographical orientation and product composition of the trade flows. The results show that during the centrally-planned economy period, the main agri-food exports consisted of meat and cereals, and since the ’70s, also dairy products, fresh and canned vegetables and fruit, edible oils, preparations of meat and fish (cans and sausages) and beverages. General imports consisted mainly of industrial technology and raw materials for industry (oil, minerals), while the agri-food imports included again raw materials (for industries with export potential – frozen beef for the food industry, cotton and cotton residues for the textile industry), sugar, soybeans and animal feed. The ’80s saw a drastic reduction of agri-food imports (down to one-third of the value in the ’70s), as an expression of the policy of boosting exports and cutting imports, aiming at the repayment of the external debt, but at the cost of a scarce food supply for the urban population.