The fact that Romania sat at the table with the richest countries in the European Union was a very positive factor for our country, which now wants to sit at the table with the richest countries in the world, being part of the OECD, said on Monday, Mihai Precup, Secretary of State in the Prime Minister”s Chancellery.

“A year full of challenges (2025 – ed.), it is clear, but at the same time with optimism, of stability. Romania, despite all the challenges, is part of NATO, is part of the European Union and let”s not forget that in recent years we have had explosive growth. You all know very well, in 2026 we expect by mid-year that Romania”s GDP will double compared to what it was in 2018. The average salary, I was just looking at a statistic this morning, has increased quite a lot. That is, in Bucharest we are talking about 6,500 lei, at a national level about 5,600 lei. So a fulminant increase in purchasing power, we are somewhere around 80% of the European average. The fact that we sat at the table with the richest countries in the European Union was a very positive factor for Romania and we want, the Government wants to continue on this path. Because we realized that over 70% of our exports are in the European Union. So it was good to sit at the table with the richest countries in the European Union. We want to sit at the table with the richest countries in the world, being part of the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This being the zero priority, both of the Romanian Government and of Romania in general on the foreign policy side. It is very hard for me to believe that a country that will be part of the OECD will have challenges on the rating side, although there are discussions in the market, but being at the table with the richest countries in the world, we believe that we will have access to another type of investors that perhaps would not have come to Romania if we were not part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development”, said Mihai Precup, at the “Investors Forum – 2025: Challenges and Opportunities of the Year”, according to Agerpres.

He mentioned that the Romanian Prime Minister publicly announced the objective of joining the OECD in 2026, but in order to achieve it “this year will be a difficult year, in the sense that we will have to close several negotiation chapters”.

“Membership in the OECD implies alignment with best practices. The OECD slogan is “Better Policies for Better Lives”. So it means that we should have best practices on the corporate governance side, on the capital market side, taxation, anti-corruption measures. And every year an evaluation of all these practices is made. There are committees that include all OECD member countries and Romania is evaluated within those committees. We have already received the recommendations in previous years, now we are in the process of implementing them and this year we should have the final committees, for almost all the elements that remained under discussion with the OECD. And if we close the committees this year, 2026 could be a realistic deadline, the one announced by the prime minister”, said Mihai Precup.