In the 1950s, [the People’s Republic of] Romania entered the centrally planned economy stage with quite significant economic and social handicaps. The share of its population employed in agriculture (74%) was the highest in the [people’s republics]; entire regions of the country were economically underdeveloped and lacked industrial centers (Moldova, Oltenia).

For nearly two decades after the end of the world, [the People’s Republic of] Romania had to pay massive war compensations to the USSR³ through deliveries of oil, uranium, nonferrous metals, timber and natural gas at symbolic prices.

The joint companies with Soviet partners (SOV‐ROMs) also followed the same direction, which made it possible for the USSR to take control over Romania[n] industry, over the payment of war compensation in industrial machinery and equipment (existing in the nationalized factories)⁴; the Soviet counsellors were withdrawn only in late 1964.

With industrialization as primordial objective, exports had to finance the imports of industrial equipment, technology and raw materials. The customs tariff was removed, as the central planning also established what and at what prices to buy and sell, both internally and externally.

The industrialization effort was also reflected in the evolution of foreign trade: [the Socialist Republic of] Romania began to produce manufactured goods that were sold on the international markets, both on the CMEA market and to other socialist countries, as well as to developed and developing countries.

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After the difficult period of the Second World War, when its exports were a support to its war effort, another more difficult period followed for Romania[n] agriculture: the severe drought in the years 1945–1946 added to the loss of crops, animals and rural households caused by the war, which brought famine in the country, with no export availabilities.

Cooperativization, as part of the Soviet model for the transformation of agriculture, resulted in state control of the agricultural land that had been into the private ownership of peasants, and the possibility to extract the value added from agriculture to finance industrialization, either directly or as export commodity, whose value was used in the import of industrial technology.

While by the end of the 1920s the agricultural products were practically the bulk of Romania[n] exports (Table 6), in the 1930s, the share of agricultural exports decreased to 45% and down to one‐third during the war. […] In the 1950s, the agricultural products represented only one quarter of total exports; the decreasing trend in their share continued in the next decades as well, down to 19% in the first half of the 1970s, 15% in the late 1970s and only 6% in the late 1980s. Yet this evolution did not mean the diminution of the (quantitative) volume of agricultural exports, but only a much stronger increase of industrial exports in volume and value terms.

In the period of central [planning], Romania continued to be a net exporter of agri‐food products (Figure 3). […] Exports have increased with productivity, but have never touched the intensity of the beginning of the 20th century, because [the SRR] could not keep up with productivity gains in Western Europe and even with some Eastern bloc countries. Even under these conditions, [the SRR] exported agricultural and food products, the peak period being 1970–1981, with a maximum reached in 1980 (USD 1.3 billion).

Agri‐food imports also followed the trend of exports, reaching a maximum of USD 1.4 billion in 1981, the only year with a negative agri‐food trade balance in the whole period.

The 1980s saw a gradual reduction of the agri‐food exports value down to the minimum of the period (USD 545 million in 1989), but the most drastic reduction was in agri‐food imports, which decreased in 1982–1989 to less than half of the value in 1981; the minimum was recorded in 1988 (USD 424 million, practically less than one third of the 1981 value). The maximum surplus was recorded in 1977 (USD 518 million, or almost half of the value of exports).

It has been a policy of forcing exports and reducing imports to the minimum possible (except for industrial raw materials and fuels), in order to repay the external debt.

The trade was completely centralized and differentiated by destination. An important barrier to the external opening of agricultural trade was the exchange rate setting system, also centrally planned, and supported by a complex mechanism (the exchange rate regulation fund). Profits from international trade were paid into a special price equalization fund, while the losses were subsidized from the same fund (Rusali, 2000).

The importance of the European Economic Area markets for Romanian agri‐food exports (in hard convertible currencies) increased significantly between 1986–1989, from 42% in 1986 to 67% in 1989. In 1989, EEC (European Economic Community) was the main destination for agricultural exports (49.5%), other Western European destinations being the EFTA member countries (Austria, Switzerland, Sweden). The pressure of exporting to Western countries meant at the same time reducing the share of agri‐food exports to CMEA.

The analysis of the agri‐food export structure in 1961–1990 by product groups shows that in the first years (1961–1964), the share of the crop products was more than half; it gradually decreased in the subsequent years in favor of the live animals and animal products group (figure 4). The end of the 1960s and 1970s is the period when large industrial pigs and poultry farming complexes were setup, as well as large processing food industry units. As a result, processed food exports gradually increased, and after 1974, they reached more than 150 million USD annually.

In the 1980s, live animals and animal products had the largest share in exports (about 40%), followed by processed food (about 30%) and by crop products (25%).

When detailing the structure of exports (10‐year averages) by CN chapters and ranking them, one can observe that in the 1980s meat exports became prevalent (about 30% of the total), followed by cereals (13%), canned vegetables and fruit, and beverages (table 7). In the 1980s, oils and fats were less exported; instead fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as live animals (especially sheep) increased their share in the total agri‐food exports (in those years, the Romanian international trade focused more on the Near and Middle East).

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In imports, things were completely different: the crop product group dominated (with 60–80% share in imports, 65% on average in the 1980s), followed at a great distance by the processed food products group (around 24%), and eventually by the live animals and animal products group (11%) (figure 5). […] The structure of the agri‐food imports was completely different from that of exports (table 8).

Taking into account that at that time the best‐selling products for export were textiles and meat, their production had to be boosted; therefore agricultural raw materials for the textile industry (code 14 — cotton residues) were imported, as well as animal feed or raw materials for feed production (oilseeds — soybeans; cereals) and, last but not least, live animals for production and live animals with high‐quality genetic characteristics for breeding).

Sugar was (and still remains) an important import product: raw cane sugar came at low prices in [the Republic of] Cuba and was refined in [the SRR] (energy‐consuming industrial sub‐branch); it was then used for domestic consumption (industrial and population) and for export.

Exotic products (coffee, tea, spices, cocoa and cocoa products) were imported as well, but in very small quantities, insufficient to meet domestic demand.