The "National Strategy on Digital Agenda for Romania" (2014-2020) directly targets the ICT sector, aims to contribute to economic growth and to increase competitiveness in Romania, both by direct action and support of development of effective Romanian ICT and through indirect actions such as increasing efficiency and reducing public sector costs in Romania. This Digital Agenda fully supports the Digital Single Market set out after the European Union and concentrates on digitizing administrative services for citizens. 

Romania has defined 4 major fields of action that will be pursued to drive economic growth and increase competitiveness in a digital society: 

• Field of action 1 - eGovernment, Interoperability, Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, Open Data, Big Data and Social Media – increase efficiency and reduce the public sector costs in Romania by having a modern administration. Implementing and correlating the uniform vision of the fields of action 1 and 2 will generate for the period 2014-2020, an estimated impact on the Romanian economy of about 5% of GDP grow and 1% in terms of jobs.
• Field of action 2 – ICT in Education, Health, Culture and eInclusion – support at a sectorial level that will ensure ICT investments create a positive impact in the social context.
• Field of action 3 - eCommerce, Research & Development and Innovation in ICT – builds on the comparative advantages of regional Romania and supports economic growth in the private sector. The implementation of the measures of the field of action 3 will generate in the period 2014-2020 an estimated impact on the Romanian economy of approximately 3% increase at the GDP level and 2% in terms of jobs.
• Field of action 4 – Broadband and Digital Services Infrastructure – ensures social inclusion and enables the benefits across all other fields of actions. Direct and indirect impact on the economy of the Strategy for Digital Agenda for Romania, calculated in accordance with good practice observed in other European countries who have made similar investments may be translated into GDP growth by 13%, increasing the number of jobs by 11% and reduce administration costs by 12% during 2014-2020.

The National Strategy on Digital Agenda for Romania was developed in alignment with the Digital Agenda for Europe as framework of reference to define an overview on how to boost the digital economy for the 2014 – 2020 period. Romania wants to to provide better public services through the use of eGovernment 2.0 and will optimize the use of technology for effective government operations. In accordance with the once-only principle, Romania will identify relevant data registries and their owners for interoperabilty and see how this data can be effectively used to reduce the administrative burden of citizens. 

The objectives and areas of actions described in this Digital Agenda for Romania 2014-2020 focus on the cumulative efforts of European countries to achieve their digital targets. Romania needs to maximize the impact of public policies and to look at the investment in ICT as a way to transform the Romanian economy. The Digital Agenda promotes innovation, economic growth and progress and offers all citizens the access to all benefits of the digital society. 

For more information: 

• National Strategy on Digital Agenda for Romania (PDF) (September 14th, 2014) 
• Website of the Romanian Government 
• SCOOP4C Stakeholder workshop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania