Romania should adopt a long-term economic growth strategy centered on innovation and the domestic technology sector if it wants to remain competitive and overcome slowing economic growth, according to Corina Vasile, Executive Director of ANIS Romania.
Speaking at Innovation Forum 2026, organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest, she argued that Romania’s traditional economic growth model has reached its limits and that increasing the share of locally developed IT innovation could generate billions of euros in additional GDP and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
“We no longer have economic growth, while inflation remains high. All major studies show that the economic growth model we have relied on until now has been exhausted,” Vasile said.
She added that demographic trends leave little room for growth through traditional expansion, making productivity and innovation increasingly important.
“Demographics do not give us much hope that we can generate growth through extensive means. That is why we asked ourselves what we can do, starting from the reality that the IT sector has been one of Romania’s success stories. It has managed to create high value-added with a relatively small but highly skilled workforce, while generating a strong multiplier effect throughout the economy.”
However, Vasile warned that the Romanian IT industry itself is beginning to lose momentum after more than a decade of rapid expansion.
“The industry has delivered remarkable results for the economy over the past 10 to 15 years. But today we see that our IT industry model is no longer delivering the same growth rates. Perhaps it is not exhausting, but it is certainly maturing.”
To identify new opportunities, ANIS analyzed the development paths of countries such as Estonia, the Czech Republic and Poland.
“We looked at countries such as Estonia, the Czech Republic and Poland to understand what they have done differently. The common denominator is that they increased the share of domestically developed innovation within their technology industries.”
Based on that analysis, ANIS developed a growth model showing the potential economic impact if Romania were to reach the Czech Republic’s level of innovation in the IT sector.
“We asked ourselves: what if we set a common national objective—not simply to grow the IT industry for its own sake, but to strengthen Romania’s economy by increasing the innovative component of the technology sector? Our study shows that reaching the Czech model would generate around €6 billion in additional GDP, approximately 45,000 new jobs across the economy, and several billion euros in additional tax revenues.”
The study also examined a more ambitious scenario based on Poland’s performance.
“We wanted to measure what would happen if Romania reached Poland’s level. There are, of course, debates about whether we have enough talent or other constraints, but we wanted to quantify the opportunity. The results show more than €40 billion in additional GDP and nearly 300,000 new jobs.”
Vasile said ANIS is proposing not just sectoral policies but a broader economic vision.
“We have put forward an economic growth model for discussion. At this point, no one else has presented a comprehensive growth model, which is why this debate is so important. We need to work together to identify the actions required to increase innovation with the ultimate goal of growing Romania’s economy.”
She also called for cross-party, long-term commitments to innovation policies that would outlast electoral cycles.
“Based on the experience of recent electoral cycles, governments—regardless of their political orientation—tend to think in the short term. Those of us around this table will still be here in the years ahead. That is why we need common medium- and long-term objectives that we support together, both through our actions and our public messages, while encouraging political decision-makers to embrace a longer-term vision.”