BACAU, Romania, April 11 (UPI) -- With many local workers moving to Western European countries for better jobs, factories in Romania are looking for cheap labor from China.

A Romanian manager of a foreign textile plant in the northeastern industrial town of Bacau announced plans to hire 800 workers from China, the International Herald Tribune reported Wednesday.

Plant Manager Sorin Niculescu said a garment factory he runs in Bacau was lacking workers as so many Romanians left to work elsewhere in Europe, particularly since Jan. 1 when Romania joined the European Union.

Foreign investors lured by low wages have come to Romania to open factories, but the low wages and open EU borders pushed Romanian workers to leave, the newspaper said.

Local analysts estimate about 2 million Romanians -- about 10 percent of the population of 22 million -- have left the country looking for a better life in the West since the fall of communist in 1989.