Premier-designate Orban, CCIR president discuss business milieu's expectations of future government

Premier-designate Ludovic Orban met on Thursday with the president of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIR), Mihai Daraban, with the two looking at the economic situation and discussing the business milieu's expectations of the future government. "The CCIR representatives drew attention to the fact that Romania's economy is highly polarized and the business environment is increasingly fragile, so that support measures are required to encourage and develop private economic initiatives. In this context, an up-to-date review of the trading companies was presented and assessed, highlighting several vulnerabilities of the economic development model Romania is headed for," the National Liberal Party (PNL) said in a release. According to the cited source, out of 927,373 officially registered companies, 221,229 have not filed their financial statements for 2018, a figure that has been rising alarmingly in the past years, and of the total of active businesses a tiny 0.56 percent - that is 3,770 companies - account for 65 percent of the total turnover of the economy, which points to an extremely high degree of polarization. At the same time, although the number of companies running on one hundred percent Romanian capital is 650,000-plus, their turnover stands at 156 billion euros, compared to approximately 35,000 companies with one hundred percent foreign capital which produce an aggregate turnover of 116 billion euros. "The sides looked at several possibilities to support the business environment and the domestic capital without discriminating against foreign companies. Thus, the PNL Chairman mentioned facilitating the access of Romanian companies to publicly financed works and services, consultancy and technical assistance for the companies' access to private sources of capitalization and financing via the capital market, removing administrative barriers from the labor market and encouraging employment in the private economy, supporting private investment programs for employee training and dual (public - private) vocational education," the release shows. At the end of the talks the sides agreed on the need for permanent consultations and an open collaboration between the business environment and the future government in order to restore the confidence of investors and small entrepreneurs in the prospects of developing their business in a stable and predictable economic, fiscal and legislative climate. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Andreea Rotaru; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)