Now, one involves the other and the latter means exactly the development of the industry. As for the first, I've got good news for you - Bucharest Stock Exchange appears to have understood it and acts accordingly. They developed a program, a virtual game to be more specific, called Invest targeting approximately 300,000 high school students from some 3,300 schools. The idea is new in Romania, but not worldwide - in grad school even myself I used to play a bit with Dresdner Kleinwort's trading simulation, a very good gig helping learn to invest in the stock market using a stock market simulator game. What is extremely surprising, in a postive way, is that BSE's management got it right, decided upon the strategy and now on the execution. It looks like this is part of a wider strategy of BSE becoming a regional leader. And educating the market is exactly what any smart company would have to do in Romania, if it makes sure that it is the one reaping the fruits later on.
I mentioned a couple of times (here and here) about my beliefs that one of the most attractive industries in Romania is investment management. It will grow not only from the expected foreign capital inflow but also from the local money. In spite of not so encouraging official statistics about Romanian purchasing power, people in Romania do have savings and they tend to keep them at bank. This is the result of two factors: lack of education and lack of alternatives.
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One of the major assets that Romania has is that many people own their own apartments and homes. This capital is largely locked up but as things progress, people will likely start leveraging their housing to invest.
Even though banks nowadays are more open to offerring loans, still it is a very dificult process. Banks ask for fixed assets collaterals of 120-150% and I don't see Romanians running to put their houses as a collateral for a loan. Also, my observations are that Romanians don't have the entrepreneurial spirit yet, even though they're inventive when it comes to making their own way out. Still people graduating from the grad schools from Romania are likely to be interested in getting a good job at a multinational rather than running their own show. Speaking of inventiveness, Romanians and SMEs, the last technique I heard of is that it is not uncommon these days that an employer would set up a company for each of its employees and pay their salary as they'd be suppliers. I think it makes a beautiful example of tax avoidance. :)