Region Overview

The North-West Region (Northern Transylvania) was created based on the Law 151/1998 (modified by the law 315/2004) by voluntary association of the local public administrations, but it is not yet considered an administrative-territorial unit and it does not have a legal status.
The North-West Region (Northern Transylvania) is one of the 8 development regions in Romania and it is composed by 6 counties: Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj, Maramures, Satu-Mare, Salaj. The surface of the region is of 34.159 square km, which represent 14.32% of the country’s surface, with a total population of 2.744.914 inhabitants. The region includes 421 administrative-territorial units: 6 counties, 42 towns, of which 15 municipalities, 398 communes and 1.823 villages.
The region has a strategic geographical position, being situated at the borders with Hungary and Ukraine, but also with the Center, West and North-East development regions in Romania.
The region is one of the most picturesque in Romania, starting from the Apuseni mountains that have a particular charm, to the special cultural-popular patrimony in the ethnographic regions unique in this part of Europe.
Northern Transylvania is a cosmopolite region, where, together with the Romanians, live half (52.8%) of the total number of the Hungarian inhabitants in Romania, which has brought about the creation of a single cultural identity.
In 2003, the North-West Region will have a GIP/inhabitant of 2.338 Euro, close to the national average, but still far from the European Union average of 27. The contribution of the economic sectors to the creation of the regional GIP indicates a percentage of 16.3% for agriculture, 35% for the second sector and 46.7% for the third one. From the point of view of the evolution, there is a growth of the services and a reduction of the agricultural activities. Considerable growths were registered in the housing and industrial construction sector – dwellings, shopping centers. A series of differences between the counties have been noticed: some are more industrialized, while others are based on the primary activities, especially agriculture and animal breeding.

Transportation infrastructure

The region is crossed by 7 national roads (the most important is E60 – from Hungary, which makes the connection with Oradea-Cluj-Brasov and with the country’s capital Bucharest, E576 – Cluj-Napoca-Dej, E81 – from Satu Mare-Zalau-Cluj-Napoca-Brasov-Bucuresti, E79 – Oradea-Deva, E671 – Oradea-Arad-Timisoara, E58 – Cluj-Napoca-Dej-Bistrita-Baia Mare-Vatra Dornei). The developing infrastructure projects are worth mentioning, the most important of which would be the Brasov-Bors highway that will make the connection with Hungary.
3.222 km of the total road network are modernized (that is 27.2% of the total).
On the important routes (European roads) rehabilitation works have been made and are about to be completed.

In there are 4 airports: Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Baia-Mare and Satu-Mare. In the last 5 years, the Cluj-Napoca airport has seen a constant traffic growth, which placed this airport on the third place on a national level.
The railway network had in 2004 1.641 km, out of which 166 are electrified lines, and 255 km are double lines.

Regional poles for economic development

The most important cities are Cluj-Napoca, Baia-Mare, Oradea, Zalau, Satu-Mare and Bistrita – these are considered both regional poles for economic development and cities with a special cultural and historical patrimony. In the Region exist or are proposed as projects 2 metropolitan areas, respectively Cluj metropolitan area and Oradea metropolitan area, these cities being also regional poles for economic development.

After analyzing the strategic development options, the Region has chosen a polycentric development model (a development policy sustained by a network of localities that play the role of development poles), with focus on the economic growth through the functional specialization of the territory. Regarding the polycentric development, it has become necessary to strengthen the involvement potential of the municipalities that are county capitals (Baia Mare, Bistrita, Cluj, Oradea, Satu Mare, Zalau), and also to strengthen and/or grow the involvement potential of a minimum of other cities, which at the end of the programming period (2007-2013) can be classified on a superior level than the present one.


Economic attractiveness
The North-West Region (Northern Transylvania) is, after Bucharest-Ilfov, the most economically attractive development region in Romania. This is due to the labour market and to the salaries, to the foreign investments, but also to the private business environment and to the market competition, as well as to the inputs of modern technologies. It is important that the service sector has come to represent a higher percentage of the total regional economy – 50% - having also as significant branches commerce and tourism.
The Region’s economy is in full development, with a dynamic economic growth in the last years especially in sectors such as civil engineering, textile industry, automotive and equipment industry. Almost all the industrial branches are represented in the area and there is an increasingly important number of major foreign enterprises, some of them located in the industrial sites in the region – Tetarom Cluj, Bors, Jibou, Satu-Mare.
Considered to be real engines of regional economic growth, there were about 90.000 small and medium enterprises in 2006, over 15% of the total number of enterprises registered in Romania.
The business support infrastructure is developing in the Region mostly as public and private industrial sites – Cluj-Napoca, Jibou, Satu-Mare, Bors.
Bihor county is the engine of exportations, but also the main importer in the North-West region (Northern Transylvania), followed by Cluj and Satu Mare counties, while Bistrita- Nasaud and Salaj, predominantly rural counties, have a very small participation in the external transactions of the Region.

Tourist attractions

The Region benefits from special tourist attractions and resources, which place it among the regions with important development perspectives: thermal waters and salt mines (the international tourist resort Baile Felix in Bihor is one of the most important in Romania, 1 Mai, Tinca, Tasnad, Marghita, Ocna Sugatag, Dej or Turda); there are also a series of projects for the development of the mountain tourist resorts - Borsa, Baisoara, Stana de Vale, Colibita; the popular culture and the cultural and ethnographic patrimony with top destinations in the cultural objectives in Romania (The Banffy Castle in Bontida), fortresses and historic monuments (Oradea, Bistrita), fortified churches in Transylvania and the wooden Monasteries in Maramures (UNESCO monuments) etc.; over 170 protected natural areas, with a total surface of 28.1845 hectares, two national parks and two natural parks, included in the tourist circuits.
Demographic data
The demographic distribution is balanced between the rural and the urban areas, Cluj county being the most urbanized (with 66.2% of the population living in the urban area). The demographic aging phenomena and the depopulation due to external migration affect also the North-West Region (Northern Transylvania), as much as they affect the entire country.
As for the unemployment rate, the North-West Development Region (Northern Transylvania) is in the top of the 8 best ranked regions in the candidate states, regarding both the women unemployment rate, and the young people unemployment rate. The poverty rate is decreasing and it is inferior as compared to the other regions in Romania. Yet, 17% of the population continues to be affected by the socio-economic marginalization, the average net wage in the economy being of approximately 850 RON.

The university environment
In the Region there are 16 important universities that include 111 faculties, attended by over 87.042 students. The universities function as centers of excellence in the higher education (Babes-Bolyai University, the Technical University in Cluj are two of the oldest in the country) and they concentrate a great part of the educational resources, while the region has a valuable human and research capital.

Rural development
A great part of the region and of the counties in the region are composed by the agricultural land (between 49.4% in Maramures and 71,9% in Satu Mare), followed by forests and other types of land with a forest vegetation, which proves the regional agricultural potential. The region’s varied natural conditions give the possibility of developing a complex agriculture, which will be the third branch as share of the GIP. In 2004, the North-West Region made an important quota (13.4%) of the agricultural production in Romania, with Bihor and Cluj as the most developed counties.
In the North-West Region (Northern Transylvania), in spite of certain problems of the rural development, there are the best conditions for the development of the animal breeding sector, since a great part of the agricultural surface (49.25%) is covered by pastures. There are also large enterprises in the food industry.
The sewerage network includes 35 municipalities and cities and it covers 106 localities in the North-West Region. The total simple length of the sewerage pipes is of 2208 km.
At the end of 2002, all the cities of the region were among the localities that had sewerage networks, numbering 35 and 71 rural localities. Unfortunately for the rural area, there still are serious problems related to the guarantee of the quality of life. An important problem regarding the protection of the environment in the North-West region is waste management. This includes waste collection, transportation, treatment, revaluation and elimination activities.