Study: Most business leaders in Romania believe resilience plan will aid local economy’s competitiveness

Three quarters of Romanian business leaders (75%) believe that the reforms and investments made through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) will contribute to the local economy’s competitiveness in the next five years, according to the Deloitte study Futureproofing Europe: How the NextGenerationEU program is inspiring companies to transform. They also expect the resilience plan reforms and investments to support local businesses’ transition to a more performant and sustainable operational model.

The survey, carried out among nine EU member states, points out the above-average level of knowledge of the surveyed Romanian executives (41%) on the objectives and areas of intervention of the plan. Romania is among the states with the most companies interested in participating in tenders for NRRP projects, with 5% in 2023, compared to the EU average of 3%, according to the survey.

Innovation, digitization and sustainability are the strategic directions targeted by the NextGenerationEU fund (NGEU), accessed by the member states through their national Recovery and Resilience Facilities, and EU companies take advantage of this opportunity to update their strategies, the study also indicates. Thus, over a third of them (36%) declare that they have rethought their innovation strategy since the adoption of the NGEU by the European Commission (2020), 40% have redesigned their digitalization strategy, and 31%, their sustainability strategy, also stating that they feel driven by the NGEU and the NRRP to increase investments in the “green” transition.

Companies in Romania rank above average in each of these chapters: 37% declare that they have reviewed their innovation strategy over the last 24 months, 50%, the one on digitization, while 61%, the highest percentage among countries presented in the study, declare that they will increase investments in sustainability under the NRRP influence.

“The EUR 800 billion available under the NextGenerationEU fund create direct and indirect opportunities that business leaders across the European Union, including in Romania, perceive and that push them to update their strategies in this time of recovery after last years’ successive shocks. Actually, 62% of the surveyed executives say that support mechanisms similar to the NGEU would be welcome even after 2026, during possible new episodes of systemic instability, while 57% estimate that the funds attracted by the states through their national plans will mobilize a significant increase in private investments across the EU as well,” Alexandra Smedoiu, Tax Partner, Deloitte Romania, said.

“The European business environment expects more direct support from the EU in the future, in the form of grants and subsidies for entrepreneurs (72%), and feels the need for faster and less bureaucratic decision-making mechanisms (44%), better alignment of the institutions involved (40%), and an increased ability to reconcile some divergent interests of member states (37%),” she added.