More than 260,000 Romanians are considering moving to the north western city of Cluj Napoca in the coming years, while the capital Bucharest could expect nearly 246,000 migrants, a recent report from the World Bank showed.

The study also indicated that around 2.4mn Romanians are considering moving within the country in the next 5 years, while 1.1mn are considering emigration – a switch from the dynamic in previous years, when the majority of Romanians wanted to move abroad.

Cluj Napoca has been expanding rapidly in the past years and has attracted a series of foreign companies, including Emerson, and IBM.

The results of the survey showed that 11.37% of the respondents would like most to live in a north western city, while 15.23% indicated Cluj Napoca as the city they would like most to live in. Currently just 2.3% of the Romanian population live in Cluj. 

Many people also expressed interest in moving to Bucharest (14.4%), Timisoara (11.9%), Brasov (11.5%), Sibiu (5.16%), or Iasi (4.3%).

Territorially, the regions with the most attractive urban centres are the Centre, West, North West, and Bucharest-Ilfov. The regions with the least attractive urban centres include South-Muntenia, North-East, South-West, and South-East.

When asked about the reason for picking a particular city, a vast majority chose “quality of life” as their main motivation. Other reasons include jobs, specialised healthcare and education.

The authors of the report noted that considering the results of the survey, the administrations should identify ways to make people’s intentions a reality and find ways of creating new jobs and enabling land and housing markets to work efficiently – a key prerequisite if people are to actually move, the report said.

“Improving the economic performance and attractiveness of urban areas in the country can help ensure long-term, sustainable growth – but this requires national and local governments to make in concerted efforts to promote metropolitan development, greater decentralisation, and improved cooperation and coordination between various stakeholders,” the report noted.