I haven't been able to find this info with my Google-Fu.

I recently picked up a SAR-1 with a Romanian side folder. Any idea if it was imported this way, or the side folder was added after import?

Thanks,

No.  Added after import.

Yeah. We were in the back half of the AWB at that point. I remember them being the hotness around y2k.

No, they did not come imported with the stock.  They came with wood stock & fore end.  The pistol grip was a cheap black plastic US made part along with the fire control group (usually Tapco G2 if I remember correctly).

You could find Romanian (and even East German) folding stocks dirt cheap, I'm talking less than $40 or so.  So it was very common to come across SAR rifles with Romanian folding stocks as it was cheap and easy to do.  It literally bolted up just fine and even worked with the Romanian wood fore end with the wood pistol grip.  Hell, you could get Bulgarian Circle 10 waffle mags for $10 at the time.

I remember seeing them sold with side folders welded open in the 2002-3 time frame.

And Century sold the welded ones dirt cheap. A buddy and I bought them by the dozens, cut and cleaned up the welds and resold them. They had 100’s in stock, but when the ban appeared to be ending, they pulled them from inventory.