Romania has a per capita purchasing power of EUR 8,017 this year, which puts the country 51% below the European average of EUR 16,344, GfK said in its Purchasing Power Europe 2022 study.

Romania thus ranks 31st among the 42 nations included in the report, just behind Hungary (30th with an average per capita purchasing power of EUR 8,751). By comparison, with a per capita purchasing power of EUR 66,204, Liechtenstein tops the ranking by some distance, followed by Switzerland (EUR 41,758) and Luxembourg (EUR 37,015).

In fact, according to the study’s findings, there are tremendous differences among the 42 countries surveyed. “Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg have a significantly higher spending potential than the rest of Europe, while the purchasing power is the lowest in Kosovo, Moldova, and Ukraine. Thus, Liechtensteiners have more than 43 times the amount available for spending and saving than Ukrainians,” GfK said.

In Romania, the gap between counties with high and low purchasing power has widened even further this year, compared to 2021, with the capital Bucharest clearly leading the field with a per capita purchasing power of EUR 15,482.

“This means that the inhabitants of the capital have more than 93% more purchasing power than the national average and 3.6 times more than the inhabitants of the Vaslui county, which has the lowest purchasing power in terms of spending and saving. Here, disposable net income is just EUR 4,728, which is around 53% of the national average,” reads the GfK report.

Most of the counties in the top 10 are the same as the previous year but with a few notable changes. In 2022, Cluj overtook Timis to move into second place with a per capita purchasing power of EUR 11,643, while Arges and Arad counties swapped places in seven and eight.

Meanwhile, all top 10 counties have an above-average per capita purchasing power. With a spending potential of EUR 8,191 per inhabitant, tenth-placed Prahova county comes closest to the national average but is still 2.2% above it.

All other 32 counties in Romania, which constitute more than three-quarters of all counties, are below the national average, GfK also found.

The complete GfK study is available here.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Anastasiia Yanishevska | Dreamstime.com)