According to Alla Skvortsova, not all new enterprises survived for long, and the Great Depression had a particularly strong impact on the region, many of the companies going bankrupt or closing in 1929–1933. Governmental policy, influenced by the banking system and the industrial cartels, prevented a rebound, the industry of the Old Kingdom again receiving preferential treatment. The main factors that affected the development of Bessarabia in the 1930s were severe credit restrictions, increases in transport tariffs and customs restrictions, and special tax policies. The tax burden was notably high, with enterprises required to fully provide the assigned tax agent with housing, heating, lighting, and office space. Bessarabia was reduced mostly to a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial goods of Romanian or foreign origin. By the end of the 1930s, the only industrial sectors that managed to rebound were the food and woodworking industries, the rest witnessing either stagnation or a decrease compared to pre-Depression levels. Most industrial facilities in the food industry worked significantly below their installed capacity even in prosperous years such as 1937. Several large factories, such as the Basarabeasca, Cetatea Albă, Florești and Tighina, railway workshops, the Cetatea Albă and Chișinău textile and knitwear factories and the Cetatea Albă canning factory and distillery were dismantled and relocated to the Old Kingdom by 1938. Between 1929 and 1937, fixed capital in the industry dropped by 10%, and the number of industrial workers in Bessarabia dropped from 5,400 in 1925 to 3,500 in 1937, while their overall number in Romania had increased by almost 27% during the same period. Between 1926 and 1937 the share of the food industry in the total production of large manufacturing industries increased from 77.1% to 92.4%, with sharp decreases observed in sectors with higher added value, such as the metalworking, textile and leather processing industries. Even so, the food industry failed to fulfill local needs; most industries heavily relied on manual labor and primitive technologies. Electricity production in Chișinău, Bessarabia's center and Romania's second-largest city, recorded in 1925 at 4.47 million kWh, only increased by 6.7% during the following decade, lagging far behind other Romanian cities: 572.3% in Galați, 238.2% in Bucharest, and over 101% in Iași. By the end of the 1930s, only one in seven Bessarabians had access to electricity, compared to one in four among the general Romanian population.
According to Alla Skvortsova, not all new enterprises survived for long, and the Great Depression had a particularly strong impact on the region, many of the companies going bankrupt or closing in 1929–1933. Governmental policy, influenced by the banking system and the industrial cartels, prevented a rebound, the industry of the Old Kingdom again receiving preferential treatment. The main factors that affected the development of Bessarabia in the 1930s were severe credit restrictions, increases in transport tariffs and customs restrictions, and special tax policies. The tax burden was notably high, with enterprises required to fully provide the assigned tax agen!t with housing, heating, lighting, and office space. Bessarabia was reduced mostly to a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial goods of Romanian or foreign origin. By the end of the 1930s, the only industrial sectors that managed to rebound were the food and woodworking industries, the rest witnessing ?either stagnation or a decrease compared to pre-Depression levels. Most industrial facilities in the food industry worked significantly below their installed capacity even in prosperous years such as 1937. Several large factories, suc:h as the Basarabeasca, Cetatea Albă, Florești and Tighina, railway workshops, the Cetatea Albă and Chișinău textile and knitwear factories and the Cetatea Albă canning factory and d,istillery were dismantled and relocated to the Old Kingdom b.y 1938. Between 1929 and 1937, fixed capital in the industry dropped by 10%, and the number of industrial workers in Bessarabia dropped from 5,400 in 1925 to 3,500 in 1937, while their overall number in Romania had increased by almost 27% during the same period. Between 1926 and 1937 the share of the food industry in the total production of large manufacturing industries increased from 77.1% to 92.4%, with sharp decreases observed in sectors with higher added value, such as the metalworking, textile and leather processing industries. Even so, the food industry failed to fulfill local needs; most industries heavily relied on manual labor and primitive technologies. Electricity production in Chișinău, Bessarabia's center and Romania's second-largest city, recorded in 1925 at 4.47 million kWh, only increased by 6.7% during the following decade, lagging far behind other Romanian cities: 572.3% in Galați, 238.2% in Bucharest, and over 101% in Iași. By the end of the 1930s, only one in seven Bessarabians had access to electricity, compared to one in four among the general Romanian population.