At the Victoria Palace on Monday, French investors highlighted three positive aspects of Romania’s economy and five issues of concern to French companies, including tax increases to reduce the government deficit. On the other hand, Prime Minister Chuke kept only positive points and even stated that the government’s measures were taken transparently and “without the impact of new taxes and other elements that cause structural changes at the level of the business sector.”

French investors, members of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Romania, had a dialogue on Monday at the Victoria Palace with Prime Minister Nicolae Chuke, Minister of Finance Adrian Caciu, Minister of Digitalization Sebastian Burduja and other government officials. advisers

VIDEO Dialogue of French investors with Prime Minister Nicolae Chouquet

On behalf of French investors, Francois Coste, CEO of Groupama Asigurări, at the beginning of the debate highlighted three positive aspects of the socio-economic evolution in our country, respectively: high economic growth in the first half of the year, by 5.1%, very pleasantly surprised by the stability of the exchange rate of the lei- euro and positive developments in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the other hand, the French official also mentioned the concern:

“However, we are going through a mixed period as there are serious concerns from companies and I will mention 5:

– ongoing war on the border of Romania

– an unprecedented energy crisis with supply uncertainty and high prices

– high inflation with an annual rate of 15% above the European average, which reduces the margins of companies and their ability to invest, threatens the purchasing power of workers and destabilizes the labor market, which unfortunately remains very tight.

Finally, 2 perspectives that concern us:

– recession in the West, on which the economy of Romania also depends

– increasing taxes to reduce the state deficit.”, Francois Coste said.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Nicolae Chouquet, in his speech to French foreign investors, kept only the positive aspects to which he added “political stability” and said that the measures were taken through transparency and without adding new taxes.

• You talked about a number of positive points related to economic relations. (..)
• What I would add to these components of the balance is political stability. I believe that this political stability has given more confidence to all our strategic partners as well as investors, as we have ensured the consistency of the legal framework and the openness to adjust all the rules so that we can face all the stress in this period of crisis without being affected by new taxes and other elements that cause structural changes at the level of the business sector.
• Indeed, the stability and predictability of fiscal policy are strong arguments for any business plan, and I am sure that thanks to the measures we have taken, foreign investment has increased by 21% not by chance, and not by chance because of the government’s program that we have taken to ensure the largest amount for investment from one’s own budget.
• Thus, the government that I lead is pro-business, pro-investment budget, we always have an open door for dialogue, and you are convinced that we will not say NO to any opportunity that will be aimed at the development of bilateral economic relations.”, said Nikolay Chuke.

Several industries, including telecommunications, were severely affected by the energy decree issued without public consultation

Lyudmila Klimok, general manager of Orange Romania, the largest telecommunications company in Romania, was also at the table of French investors.

We remember that Orange, Vodafone and Telekom Mobile (formerly Cosmote) have warned on Friday that the energy changes introduced by the Government through an emergency decree a day ago are having a serious destabilizing effect on telecommunications services and are seriously affecting investment plans in the industry.

• “Because of the said GEO, proposed by the Government at the meeting on September 1, 2022, without public consultation, without respect for any tool of transparency of decision-making, the executive branch overnight, seven months ago, cancels the threshold values ​​for the capping of the price of electricity , on the basis of which providers of electronic communications built their business plans for 2022-2023.” This is stated in the press release of the AOMR association, which represents Orange, Vodafone and Telekom Mobile.
  

The telecommunications companies say that with this GEO, the executive authority cancels the development, investment and cost estimates made by electronic communications operators for a specific infrastructure.

GEO’s impact on energy: the telecommunications industry will have additional costs of 400 million euros

The criticism came in the context of the fact that, due to the new emergency order adopted on Thursday, September 1, the government decided to end the consumption compensation for all non-household consumers, as was the case in order 27/2022.

Thanks to the new regulation, the new beneficiaries are only SMEs, economic operators of the food industry and public institutions, which will be compensated for 85% of the average monthly consumption achieved in 2021, as well as public and private hospitals, public educational institutions and private, kindergartens and public suppliers public and private social services – for which total consumption is limited and compensated.

The rest of the industries, including telecommunications, will pay the full market price, without any compensation from the state budget.

Sources from the telecommunications industry have already told HotNews.ro that the changes adopted by the government will lead to additional costs of 400 million euros.