Steven van Groningen: The business environment in Romania is too corrupted
Date: 20-10-2011
The Romanian business environment is much too corrupted, and Romania must try to eliminate this phenomenon through “ zero tolerance” to change the negative perception of investors and not to use the fact that there is corruption in other states as well, Steven van Groningen, the chairman of the Council of Foreign Investors (CIS) told a press conference on Wednesday..” It is too corrupted ( the business environment) and it doesn’t matter if in other countries there is corruption as well, so that Romania must fight to eliminate this phenomenon completely. We have to have zero tolerance for corruption” van Groningen answered to a question connected to the level of corruption in the business environment. He said that more important even than the corruption degree in a country is the negative perception on the part of the foreign investors. “Romania is perceived as being corrupted and this has an effect on the investors and that is why it is important to show that take visible steps in the fight against corruption. We don’t have to convince anybody in this room that there is corruption in Romania, it is enough to be in the street and he can sees it himself” van Groningen said.
FIC member companies plan 10 billion-euro investments in Romania in next 5 years
Foreign Investors Council (FIC) member companies plan 10 billion-euro investments in Romania in the coming five years, FIC Chairman Steven van Groningen said on Wednesday. FIC Board member Mariana Gheorghe pointed out that the FIC member companies' investments in Romania in 2010 totalled 2 billion euros.The fields aimed for investments are mainly the transport infrastructure, agriculture and energy.
Government has taken 11 of the 80 measures proposed by FIC for economic growth
The Government took into account 27 measures of economic growth proposed a year ago by the Foreign Investment Council (FIC) and implemented 11 of them, said FIC board member Mariana Gheorghe on occasion of the presentation of the Economic Growth Programme results and the launch of the White Chart.
The 11 measures are to introduce an efficient system of arrears management, the First Home 4 programme, the continuation of the agreement with the IMF, the reduction of the minimal mandatory reserves of the commercial banks, the reduction of the penalties for payments due to public budgets, credit facilities for SBEs, the extension of the Rabla scrappage programme for other types of vehicles, the prioritization of the public investments and the definition of the priority projects in the field of transports, centralizing the management of the European funds (creating a ministry of the European funds), the evaluation of the absorption of the European Funds on various priority axes and their re-allocation on performing areas, the adjustment of labour legislation in the sense of the labour market becoming more flexible, said Mariana Gheorghe.
In October 2011, FIC launched the Economic Growth Programme, where they proposed 80 measures in ten major intervention fields, meant to revive the Romanian economy on a growing trend, after two years of recession. The FIC estimations showed that the implementation of these 80 measures might trigger the increase of the GDP by almost 12 percent over 2011-2015, the creation of 250,000 jobs and an increase in the public budget by 8.5 percent.
FIC is an association joining 130 companies, the most important investors in Romania, whose investments cumulate until present 40 billion euros, approximately three quarters of the direct foreign investments carried out in Romania after 1990.
The contribution to the GDP of these foreign capital companies operating in Romania is estimated in the official statistics at 33 percent.
