Castle and steel mill at Hunedoara
Courtesy Scott Edelman

Geographic Distribution

The development program sought to distribute industrial capacity evenly across the country. This policy of disaggregation often appeared counterproductive to western observers. For example, by sitting a vast steel complex at Calarasi, some of the most valuable farmland in the country had to be sacrificed. But the PCR argued that dissemination of industry into the countryside was necessary to transform Romania from a peasant society to a proletarian society, one of the prerequisites for attaining communism.

The campaign to industrialize all regions was moderately successful. In 1968 nearly half of the forty judete reported per capita industrial output of less than 10,000 lei, but by 1990 no judet was expected to produce less than 50,000 lei per capita. In addition to the Bucharest agglomeration, which accounted for nearly one-seventh of total industrial output in 1986, major industrial centers had been built in many other regions of the country. Measured in value of industrial output, the ten leading judete in 1986 were Bucharest, Prahova, Brasov, Arges, Bacau, Galati, Timis, Hunedoara, Sibiu, and Cluj--in that order. These ten judete accounted for 51.2 percent of industrial production in 1986. The ten most industrially developed judete, with 48.2 percent of all fixed industrial assets in 1986, were Bucharest, Galati, Prahova, Hunedoara, Brasov, Gorj, Arges, Bacau, Dīmbovita, and Dolj. On the other hand, the ten least developed judete, Satu Mare, Botosani, Calarasi, Ialomita, Bistrita-Nasaud, Covasna, Vrancea, Harghita, Salaj, and Vaslui, had only 8.9 percent of the fixed industrial assets..

Data as of July 1989