We are in the process of cooling the economy, when private consumption is falling, the population is trying to control the appetite for purchases as much as possible. The party is almost over and now everyone is clutching their wallets in anticipation of tougher times ahead.

The bad part of this evolution is that by refraining from buying as they did before, company executives are seeing their sales decline month after month, which (after the dubious fiscal measures taken by the government) is the second major concern of businessmen.

Labor shortages dropped from the list of problems, but the share of those worried about a lack of working capital tripled.

“We see that this is a problem that is starting to emerge,” says Andrej Csonka, CEO of Impetum Group, author of the Confidex study, which measures Romanian managers’ confidence in the economy. “Romania’s economy seems to be disconnected from major geopolitical events…We are not worried about, for example, a recession in Western Europe,” Csonka also declares.

According to him, the critical situations that Romanian managers see are related to requests for salary increases, decreasing profits and the need for financing or accumulating debts. “42% of managers believe that their own company will accumulate some debt due to a number of fiscal measures adopted by the government,” explains Andriy Chonka.

Working capital represents the difference between a company’s current assets and its current liabilities and shows the ability to meet its due financial obligations