Quantitative and qualitative structural economic changes in the cities of Zărnești (România) and Strășeni (Republic of Moldova) in the pre- and post-COVID-19 period

Abstract

Currently, the economic situation of several states on the globe has taken on alarming shapes. The increase in economic vulnerability, against the background of the sharp increase in the cost of energy resources, the global pandemic, the economic crisis generated by the war in Ukraine, the increase in geopolitical tensions in several regions of the world, have led economic entities of different sizes to review their strategy economic development, including structural transformations and traditional markets through foreign trade. The transformations in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, affected by the regional crisis, marked by socio-economic instability, already for more than half a year, are significant. Among the common problems faced by the human settlements in both countries are: the permanent economic adaptation to the changes in the conjuncture, the adjustment of the way of capitalizing the spatial resources by these two administrative-territorial entities, the implementation of economic, administrative and spatial decentralization, etc. The comparative study carried out through this research is part of a larger research of two Romanian cities located in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, being the subject of the doctoral study. CZU: 330.341.4:332.12(478-21+498-21); JEL: C54; DOI: https://doi.org/10.53486/dri2022.10