We do not have a Romanian brand with high added value. We have to think: there is no more smoke coming out of the chimney, said Mihai Daraban, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR).

“For us, if we make a gearbox, we get ingots and boxes of lathes from the final beneficiary. I think there is a problem here with this colossal level of imports. We are shocked by the deficit of the trade balance, which reached 34.1 billion euros, compared to 28.3 billion a year earlier, compared to 23.7 billion two years earlier, compared to 8.7 billion in 2015,” said Daraban.

• “Around 20% of the total deficit falls on agriculture – food industry”

“The state is happy that VAT is transferred from the individual to Black Friday. It really rolls. When we hear in the public space about economic growth, we are not looking at that abstraction called GDP, but at the economic data as it is submitted to the tax authorities,” he said.

The state thinks: you cannot produce as much as we can consume

“Indeed, we have an increase of approximately 45-50 thousand companies that submit additional financial statements to the tax authorities from year to year, we had an increase in turnover, we reached 392 billion euros, from 328 billion we reached a profit of 41.7 billion , it’s not bad, it’s more than 10% of the turnover, but if I think, as the state thinks, then I shudder. The state thinks: you cannot produce as much as we can consume,” the CCIR president noted.

Accordingly, the idea of ​​administrative reorganization of Romania arose.

“Poland had 48 voivodeships, that’s how they called counties. They reached 16. We came up with this solution starting from what we knew existed in Romania: the famous appeals courts,” said Daraban.

• “It is extremely necessary for the state to reduce its administrative expenses. In the medium to long term, we become insolvent.

“The Romanian economy is growing, but slowly. We have a lot to learn from this figure of €126.1 billion that Romania imported last year. I don’t think there is a more accurate consumer survey than this import figure. We need to explain this in the public space someday, as we are forced to drink 2 liters of water a day,” the head of the CCIR also noted.

He says he asked for brand statistics.

“This is the game: what is intra-community, and what is brought from the country of origin? We can’t get it. It would be an important cartridge for economic diplomacy to be able to bring the production of these consumer goods to the satisfaction of the Romanian consumer,” he said.

He gave an example: Korean brands.

“A small part is brought from Korea, and most of them are intra-community goods. We need production in Romania,” explained Daraban.

• It is good to consume Romanian. It is good to consume Romanian products, regardless of the nationality of the capital.

“There are things that can be solved in the short term, including the administrative reorganization of Romania, which is supposed to be not a very difficult thing. I don’t think it will be a tragedy,” he recalled.