ANALYSIS OF DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE DEVELOPMENT REGION WEST, ROMANIA

Romanian rural communities are characterised mainly by an ageing population, by a decrease of birth rate and by a dependence on agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture and demi-subsistence agriculture. The policy of rural development of the European Union aims at solving the issues of rural areas through the exploitation of their potential and by ensuring the proper services and infrastructure. Income sources are scarce because of the few jobs and this has major implications on life quality in the rural communities. Therefore, local authorities should be concerned with the development of their own localities and with the improvement of their inhabitants' life quality and implement successfully some development programmes or projects. The goal of the present paper is to present the most favourable ways of development for the rural communities in the development Region West, Romania, an area confronted with such issues as shortage of jobs and low incomes and where there are discrepancies between the economic developments of the counties making it up. Based on the analyses carried out and on study cases, the authors present the main aspects of the rural areas in the region, pointing out the fact that local authorities should be concerned with the development of their own localities and implement successfully development projects. The authors have reached the conclusion that the development of non-agricultural activities determines the diversification and increase of jobs and, implicitly, the increase of life quality in rural communities.