In the recent period, public actions and policies have been increasingly oriented towards the improvement of economic competitiveness on account of numerous studies that signal the problems generated by the loss of performance from this perspective. This study attempts to identify the main factors that make the regional economies in Romania vulnerable in the face of competitors, mainly for the regions with strong and medium rurality features, i.e. the Predominantly rural (PR) counties and the Intermediate counties – classified according to the OECD methodology. The results of the study showed that the factors that largely contribute to widening the regional disparities with regard to rural competitiveness, making the PR counties more vulnerable are the following: (i) access to innovation and (2) the value of exports, in both the non-agricultural and agrifood economy.